


Revolutionary

by Armbar_Nation



Series: Seth Rollins/Ronda Rousey Series [7]
Category: Professional Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-08
Updated: 2016-12-07
Packaged: 2018-08-07 12:54:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 42,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7715593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Armbar_Nation/pseuds/Armbar_Nation
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stephanie McMahon has come up with an idea for a new show for the WWE Network. A documentary with 24/7 complete access into the life of Ronda Rousey, WWE's most popular female wrestler, is a sure fire hit. But when disaster strikes, the documentary becomes about something else entirely and covers the beginning of a new chapter in the lives of Ronda and Seth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_Author's note:_

_I'm trying something different again here. It's going to be a story which is written as though you're watching a TV documentary. I've previously managed to pull off a story which was written as a podcast, so I'm backing myself to do a good job with this one too. I hope you guys enjoy it, and as always feel free to leave feedback._

_Just a couple of brief points to note before we get started:_

_1) Thea's narration will be in italics to make things a little clearer._

_2) In the world that this story is set in, all WWE programming is rated TV-14._

* * *

_**Introduction** _

"Ah, Ronda, just the person I wanted to see. Have you got a minute?"

Ronda Rousey had only been at the arena where WWE's Survivor Series pay-per-view was to be held for a matter of minutes. All she had managed to do so far was stop by her locker room to leave her case. What she wanted to say in response to the question was that she didn't have a minute because she was on the way to the bathroom, but that wasn't an option, not when the person asking was the CEO of WWE, Stephanie McMahon.

"Hey, Steph, what's up?" Ronda asked, turning to face one of her two bosses.

"Good to have you back," Stephanie smiled. "How's the calf? All healed up, I hope?"

"It's good. I'm ready to go," Ronda said easily, although she found herself thinking that it was stating the obvious because she wouldn't have been there if her right leg was still giving her pain.

"Great," Stephanie said, and then got down to business, clapping her hands together to emphasise the change in subject. It was a mannerism Ronda had seen from Hunter many times before. "The documentary we talked about a few weeks ago. You remembered that we planned to start filming it the night of your return, right?"

"Sure," Ronda said, with some genuine excitement. "So what's the deal?"

"We've hired a presenter for it. She'll be doing narration, asking you questions from time to time, that kind of thing."

"Okay. When do I meet her?" Ronda asked.

"Soon," Stephanie said. "We want your first meeting to be one of the first scenes of the documentary, so I'll have her and the cameraman come and find you in your locker room in a bit. Her name is Thea Trinidad. I think you'll like her."

"I'd better, if she's going to be following me around for a month," Ronda quipped. "Listen, I've got to get to the bathroom, Steph. I'll catch up with you later or something."

"Alright," Stephanie nodded, seemingly pleased with how the brief conversation had gone.

Ronda had started to walk away, but she turned around and asked, "This all access thing. It doesn't include them filming me taking a shit, does it?"

Stephanie's nose wrinkled in distaste at that. "No, I think we can leave that out," she said, shaking her head a little. She knew Ronda had probably been trying for that exact reaction. She could be impossible at times.

"Alright then," Ronda said, laughing at the discomfort that she had caused for her boss. "Let's get the show on the road."

As she turned and headed back to the office that she shared with her husband, which was where Thea and her cameraman were currently getting themselves ready to start filming, Stephanie let out a sigh. Personally, she had always found Ronda hard to work with and manage, even though they had come to find some respect for each other after getting off to a very rocky start when Ronda had joined the company. Thankfully, Hunter seemed to be able to deal with Ronda a lot easier than she could, so she would often leave him to it.

What wasn't in doubt was that the WWE Universe would love the new show, which was to be titled Ronda Rousey: Revolutionary. Although it had always somewhat mystified Stephanie, Ronda's popularity with the fans was undeniable. She wasn't just the most popular woman on the roster, she was one of the most popular stars in the whole company. An unprecedented look into the life of a WWE star was a sure-fire hit as a concept, before considering that the star in question was Ronda.

In a way, it had surprised Stephanie that Ronda had been keen to go ahead when the idea had been pitched to her, but then she had reasoned that no one liked publicity more than Ronda did. If Stephanie wanted to be critical, she could have said that Ronda had more talent for managing her public image than she did as a wrestler, and certainly more than did as an actress, if any of the three movies that she'd starred in to date were anything to judge by. When all was said and done though, Rousey meant ratings and subscribers for WWE, and therefore the new show could only be a good thing.

Opening the door to her office and walking in, Stephanie saw that Thea was almost ready to go. "Ronda's here," she announced. "Give it ten minutes or so, then you can go find her in her locker room and make a start."

 


	2. Chapter 2

_"Over the course of the next month, our cameras will be given unprecedented, complete, twenty four seven access into the life of a WWE Superstar. And not just any Superstar. We will be following the life of Ronda Rousey, the woman who changed the game for all female wrestlers. Her unique style, her incredible presence in the ring, and her amazing physique have enabled her to get into the ring and go toe to toe with all comers, be they female, or occasionally even male. There has never been a woman like her in the wrestling industry before._

_"It is widely accepted that Ronda's presence in WWE is the main reason for the Divas division transitioning from what was once perceived by some almost as a joke, to what is now undoubtedly one of the centrepieces of sports entertainment. Our footage, combined with that of the WWE Network, will get you closer to the four time Divas Champion and star of three Hollywood blockbusters than you have ever been before. She is Ronda Rousey. She is a revolutionary."_

For Thea Trinidad, it was time to begin filming the documentary that she hoped would prove to be her big break. Being hired to front a project that WWE were giving a lot of importance to meant the potential for huge success was definitely there, but equally so was the potential for failure. Rumor had it that Ronda Rousey could be hard to work with, especially if she decided that she didn't like or respect you, for whatever reason. Temperamental was the word that Stephanie McMahon had used in their briefing. It didn't help that Stephanie had wanted the first scene of the documentary to be a genuine first meeting between Thea and the woman she would be spending the next month living with.

Stephanie's instructions were to make the documentary seem as informal as possible. The example that WWE's CEO had given was that she wanted the viewer to be able to picture themselves sitting in Ronda's hotel room with Thea and Ronda as they had a late night chat over a glass or two of wine. What they wanted to show was Ronda going about her everyday life, rather than turning the whole thing into some stage managed atrocity that resembled most of the other reality TV shows out there.

Ground rules for the documentary had been laid down to both parties weeks earlier when Ronda had first agreed to take part, so at least that was one thing Thea didn't need to worry about. Pleasingly, Ronda had chosen not to be awkward and start trying to introduce a long list of rules of her own regarding what could and could not be filmed or talked about. In fact there was only one restriction of that nature, which Thea and WWE had agreed to. That was something to think about later though, because she was currently walking towards Ronda's locker room to meet her for the first time. It was time to give her first piece to the camera as she walked along the hallway.

"Ready?" she asked her cameraman, who gave a nod of confirmation a second later.

"My name is Thea Trinidad. I'm backstage here at WWE's Survivor Series pay-per-view, and I'm about to meet Ronda Rousey for the first time. You're probably thinking, 'Sure you are. You've probably been talking to her for an hour before filming this.' But no, I really have never met her before. And honestly, I'm feeling a little nervous about it. Her locker room is just up here, so let's go ahead and give the door a knock."

After walking the final few paces up to the door, which had Ronda's name displayed on a small plaque on the wall beside it, Thea gave it a knock which sounded a little more timid than she would have liked.

In a matter of moments the door was opened by Ronda, who was dressed in her ring gear, which consisted of a black sports bra and black shorts, both of which bore her trademark, elaborately designed RR logo in a dark shade of red. "You must be Thea," Ronda said, holding her hand out to the smaller woman. There was a full seven inch height difference between them, with Thea standing at just five feet. "I'm Ronda. It's good to meet you."

"It's great to meet you, Ronda," Thea said warmly as she accepted the firm handshake, pleased that Ronda was welcoming rather than being stand-offish. An awkward first exchange would have been a real negative start to a month of filming, and would have done nothing to ease her nerves.

"Come in," Ronda said, opening the door wider for Thea and the cameraman to enter the locker room. As they walked in, she added, "You better get used to carrying my cases and shit like that if you're with me for a month."

"Sorry, what?" Thea asked, taken aback.

"I'm messing with you," Ronda said, laughing good-naturedly at the discomfort her joke had caused. "Have a seat and tell me how the hell this is all going to work, while I finish getting ready." By finish getting ready, she meant putting her boots on and putting her hair up into a tight bun, which she set about doing as they talked.

Thea sat down on a long bench which ran along one wall of the locker room. "Well, we're going to be with you twenty four seven, or as close to it as we can get, as you know. And we're going to film everything. We're just going to keep filming all the time; everywhere you go, everyone you talk to. The footage we shoot will be edited later to make the actual documentary."

"That's some kind of fucking job for someone," Ronda said, still working on getting her hair right. With another laugh she added, "And that will need to be edited. Whoever does your bleeping for bad language might be on a bit of a mission with this thing."

"Well, the whole idea is that we show the real Ronda going about her daily life. If that involves swearing..."

"I'll do my best to be a good girl," Ronda grinned. "Gotta keep Hunter and Steph happy."

There had been no real cutting edge to the sarcasm, but keen to move the conversation on, Thea said, "You're actually making a return here tonight at Survivor Series following a calf strain. From what I was told, the original prognosis was that you would be out for around three weeks, yet it's been two months. That sounds quite nasty."

"Yeah," Ronda grimaced at the thought. "It was a strange one. A couple of times I got back to feeling like I was okay, but almost as soon as I started doing heavier training I started feeling pain in it again. Still, it's felt fine for two weeks now and I've been training well. I'm good to go tonight, and I can't wait to get back out there."

Thea was glad that Ronda seemed comfortable with talking to her, and interested in doing so. She was responding to questions with detailed answers, which made any kind of interview so much easier to conduct, and also better for viewers to watch. While Ronda crouched down to lace up her boots, Thea asked, "Your husband is also out injured right now. In some ways it must have been nice for you both to be out at the same time?"

"I know what you mean, and in a way, yeah it's nice for Seth and I to have some real, quality time to spend with each other. It can be a rare thing at times. Neither of us likes to be out of action, though. Wrestling is what we both love to do. There's nothing quite like being out there, giving it everything we've got, in front of the best fans in the world. At least his injury isn't serious either. He sprained his ankle a few weeks ago. That kind of thing is really painful at the time, but it doesn't take long to heal."

There was a moment of hesitance from Thea as she tried to decide if she should go on talking about Seth, or to ask a question about Ronda's well known special connection with the fans. The decision was taken out of her hands when Ronda finished lacing up her second boot with a little flourish. "I've not been told what I'm doing tonight yet, so why don't we go find out what the deal is?"

"Sure," Thea agreed, getting to her feet. She knew enough about the wrestling business to know roughly how the creative process worked and how matches were booked. Even that side of the business wasn't off limits for the documentary, although it seemed obvious that WWE would want to do some editing as far as that was concerned before the finished product was aired.

Ronda lead the way out of the locker room and down the hallway, walking at a brisk pace that left Thea having to hurry to keep up. She had decided to leave the questions for a while and to instead observe how Ronda interacted with her colleagues, and when the time came, her superiors. Again though, it didn't work out like that. Rather than being withdrawn, Ronda was talking away as though Thea was someone she had known for a long time.

"We've sorted out a room each for you and your cameraman at home. We'll be flying back there after the show tonight."

"Great, thank you," Thea smiled. "I'm looking forward to meeting your husband. And you have a housemate too, right?"

"Not just a housemate, my best friend," Ronda clarified. "Maggie's an amazing girl and she's been such a positive influence on my life. Seth has too, obviously, but everyone needs a best friend."

The conversation was cut off before it could go any further, because as they made a left turn into another hallway, they saw Roman Reigns approaching them. Ronda was pleased to see another of her close friends. Seeing Roman was now something of a rarity thanks to the WWE draft leaving them on separate shows. There had been one night, after Seth and Ronda had ended their first relationship, that she and Roman had become more than friends, but she knew that was a secret that neither of them intended to let slip out because they were now both married.

"Hey, how are you?" Ronda asked him warmly.

"I'm good. You?" They reached each other and exchanged a brief hug as a further greeting. Thea and the cameraman waited a few feet away. It was obvious that Ronda wasn't much of a hugger.

"Good. Finally managed to get rid of the injury, so I'm ready to go."

Roman gestured towards Thea and the cameraman with his head. "Is this for the documentary you mentioned?"

"Yeah. A month of having everything I do filmed. What could possibly go wrong?" Roman asked with raised eyebrows.

A glint of humour came to Roman's eyes. "With you? Anything's possible."

Ronda turned to the camera with a broad smile on her face. "You see what I have to put up with, with this guy?"

They both laughed at that. "So what's the plan for you tonight?" Roman asked.

"Not sure yet," Ronda replied with a shrug. "That's actually where I was going, to find out."

"I'll let you carry on then," Roman said easily. "We should do dinner or something when Seth's back on the road. How's he getting on, anyway? Haven't spoken to him this week."

"He's doing great," Ronda said. There was a slight but perceptible change in her tone when she talked about her huband that she didn't even realise herself. It was the kind of tone that was only used by someone who was talking about someone who they loved very deeply. "I think they could have had him back by now if they wanted to push him, but he'd hardly had a day off all year before the injury. A few weeks of rest is doing him a world of good. He'll be back on TV in a week or two. They'll almost certainly ask him to do Europe."

While Ronda and Roman talked about WWE's upcoming tour of Europe, which was only eight days away from starting, Thea turned to the camera with a smile on her face. She made sure to keep her voice quiet enough for Ronda not to hear over her own conversation. "The way she talks about Seth. I think that's adorable. I can't wait to see them together. Ronda Rousey: Romantic definitely isn't something I expected to be thinking about, although I'm not sure why now. It's just not the impression you get from watching her on TV."

"I'll let you get on then," Roman was saying. "Enjoy, whatever they have planned for you."

"You too," Ronda smiled back. "I'm really digging some of the shit that you and Bray have been doing."

"Thanks," Roman said, genuinely appreciating the compliment. "I'll catch you later." With that he walked past Thea with a slight nod of acknowledgement, and was gone.

Ronda gestured with her head for Thea to follow, and the swift walking pace was resumed. Knowing that they were going to find the Chairman of WWE, Thea took the opportunity to talk to Ronda about him. "You're on your way to speak to Triple H right now. It's common knowledge that he was the one who signed you to WWE as a referee, way back when, and it's also well known that he was the one who encouraged you to join the active roster as a wrestler. What I've heard is that the two of you have always enjoyed a good and close working relationship. Would you say that was true?"

Glancing down at the smaller woman, there was the first sign of displeasure from Ronda in the harder expression on her face. "We work well together, and I have a lot of respect for Hunter, but I wouldn't describe it as a close relationship."

Thea knew that the documentary would be criticised heavily if she rolled over every time Ronda bristled at something she said or a question she asked. With that in mind, she decided to set her stall out early and show her subject that it wouldn't happen by pushing on with her line of questioning. "But you would agree that you have a better working relationship with Hunter than you do with Stephanie? And better than you did with Vince McMahon when he was still in charge?"

Ronda stopped in her tracks, which made Thea instinctively expect an angry outburst. There was just some vibe that she had quickly picked up on which told her that Ronda would be quick to explode if she was pushed. To her surprise though, she saw Ronda offer her a knowing smile on this occasion. "You're good at your job, Thea. I like that. I can respect that. I'm glad they didn't send some lame ass pushover, that would have been boring. And you're right, I do get along with Hunter easier than Stephanie, but that doesn't mean I don't have respect for her. The same goes for Vince. And I've even been in the ring with Steph, so yeah, there's definitely respect there, of course there is. Hunter's done a lot for me over the years though, inside the ring and out. He's one of the major reasons that Ronda Rousey, or women's wrestling as a whole, are now as successful as they are. If that's not deserving of respect then I don't know what is."

Satisfied with that answer, Thea said nothing further as they finished the short walk to the Chairman's office. "Are you supposed to come in with me on things like this?" Ronda asked Thea as they approached the open office door, trying to remember what she had been told weeks before. Some of the ground rules had slipped her mind. Rules in general were not her kind of thing.

"Yeah, but I'm not supposed to say anything."

That sounded lame to Ronda, which made her chuckle as she walked into the office, giving the door a little knock on the way in out of politeness. "Hey, Hunter," she greeted the boss, sounding more like someone seeing an old friend for the first time in months.

"Ronda," Hunter said with genuine warmth of his own and a smile to match as he looked up from the text message that he had been in the middle of writing. Setting his phone aside, he stood and walked around his desk so that he could properly greet one of his favourite proteges. "Great to have you back," he said as they exchanged a brief hug, much like the one Ronda had exchanged with Roman a couple of minutes earlier.

"I'm glad to be back. That stupid injury seemed like it was never going to heal. I'm sure I don't have to tell you what that's like."

"No. I've had my share of them," Hunter said with a little chuckle at the major understatement.

The first thing Ronda had noticed when she had entered was that Hunter was the only person in the office. "No Stephanie tonight?"

"She's here somewhere. I'm sure you'll catch up with her at some point. She was working with Thea earlier, before she came and found you. Everything going okay so far?" The question had been addressed to both Ronda and Thea, who nodded to let him know that she was happy with things so far.

"Yeah, I think we're going to get on just fine," Ronda said. "Unless she gets sick of me of course," she added with a grin.

"I'll give it three days," Hunter laughed.

"I just came to find out what you've got planned for me tonight," Ronda said, moving the conversation on quickly, as was her usual style.

The Chairman's expression became slightly mischievous. He wasn't just going to come right out and tell her what the idea was. "Something a bit different," he began. "Something I know the fans are going to love. And I mean, really love."

"You're not talking about changing my character are you?" Ronda asked, immediately going on the defensive.

"Not as such," Hunter said with careful consideration, stringing her along masterfully.

"Just tell me," Ronda said irritably. "I don't like guessing games."

Hunter looked in the direction of the cameraman, who had been filming the exchange from just inside the doorway, and addressed the future audience of the documentary. "See how easy she is to wind up?"

Realising that she had been played for her loss of patience, Ronda also turned to the camera and grinned. "This is bullying in the workplace. And now we have it on film."

"Yeah, but it's  _my_ film," Hunter said, and they both laughed.

Thea couldn't help noticing how companionable they were with each other. Ronda might have played down the suggestions of a close working relationship between them, but it was fairly obvious that there was one, regardless of what she had said.

"Alright, seriously, what's the plan?" Ronda asked, and with that it was down to business. "What are we doing that the fans are going to love?"

"We're putting you on a team with Bayley, and you're going over for the Divas Tag Team titles tonight," Hunter announced, with evident pride in his idea.

Ronda weighed that up for a moment and then slowly nodded. "You're right, the fans will love that. The two fan favourite Divas on the same team. I thought it was Bayley and Becky tonight though?"

That was indeed what had been advertised on the card: Bayley and Becky Lynch against the Divas Tag Team Champions, Nikki Bella and Sarita Lopez.

"That's what's on the card," Hunter nodded. "We did the whole thing last week with Bayley trying to find a herself a partner. When she goes out there tonight though, Becky is going to pull a no-show, or so it will seem. We'll play her music a couple of times and announce her, but she won't come out. Then your music will hit, the fans will go wild, you'll walk out and get in Bayley's corner. Then you'll go over. I want you to go find her and see i you can put together some kind of double team finish that involves her Bayley to Belly and your clothesline in some kind of combination."

As she tried to take all of that in, Ronda found herself caught up on a detail that didn't really need to concern her. "Why would Becky not show up if she agreed to be on Bayley's team?"

Hunter already had an answer prepared for that, knowing how picky, sometimes even downright awkward Ronda could be when it came to her creative. It was something that she had improved on over time, but it was still very much a part of her character. He knew that the best way to deal with her was to explain the reasons why something had to be done or why a certain decision had been made, rather than to try and dismiss her questions and simply tell her to get on with it. That style of management didn't work with Ronda. If she was on-board with ideas, she would give them her all. If not, her head would drop and the loss of motivation would show in her performances and her attitude backstage. Managing her definitely wasn't an easy thing to do, but he had gotten used to how to do it quite well. Doing so made sure that he got the kind of results from her which most often proved to be worth the effort with the reactions she got from the fans, and the ratings she helped to pull in for the WWE Network.

"We're going to show Nikki and Sarita going into Becky's locker room, and then we'll show them coming out again just before the match, looking pleased with themselves. It'll be made to look like Becky cut some kind of dirty deal with them to leave Bayley high and dry, but on Smackdown we'll find out that they actually attacked her and left her tied up so that she couldn't come out."

He paused to clear his throat. "So, Becky won't come out to help Bayley, you will. You and Bayley will go over, and we'll have the two most popular Divas on the roster as the tag champs. You'll then feud with Nikki and Sarita, with Becky in the picture too. You've had some of your best matches with Nikki and Sarita, so I have high hopes for this thing over the next couple of months."

The look in Ronda's eyes and the smile that had broken out on her face as he'd talked had already told him that he had her before she responded. "I like the idea of a fan favourite team with Bayley, and I like the rivalry too," she said. "All four of us get on well with each other and we've all had good matches. I think you're really onto something with this, Hunter. I've got an idea as well. Bayley's hugging gimmick? On the face of it, it doesn't seem to fit with my character at all. But why don't we make that kind of the point? I mean, I'll be kind of reluctant to team with her and get involved with that shit. I can picture tonight when we win, the ref gives her one of the belts and I snatch mine from her, that kind of thing."

"Good," Hunter said thoughtfully, nodding his appreciation for the idea. "I like that. What we could do is have it become Bayley's mission, no, Bayley's and the fan's mission, to get you to acknowledge her properly and hug her. I really like that. The payoff when you do hug her could get a really big reaction if we do it right."

"Sounds like we have a plan," Ronda said, clearly warming to the new storyline fast. "Do you want me to go find Bayley and tell her all of this?"

"The others all know about the match and the angle with Becky, but you need to work on the finishing move I mentioned with Bayley. I told her about it last week, so hopefully she's put some thought into it already. Go find her and talk that over with her, and tell her about the new hugging angle too."

"You got it, boss," Ronda said pleasantly. With that she turned to leave. She was about to speak to Thea, but Hunter's stopped her first. "Before you go, there are a couple of other things," he said. "With the documentary and all, we want to show as many of the things that make up the regular life of one of our top stars, so I've arranged a couple of appearances for you, working around your schedule of other commitments."

Some members of the locker room hated having to go to autograph signings or Make-A-Wish events, but Ronda wasn't one of them. Interacting with the fans who had always been so good to her was something that she had taken advantage of and shown no enthusiasm for in the past, but were now things she genuinely loved. 'It is your job to leave the world a better place than you find it,' was what her late father had told her, and it was something that she tried her best to do.

"Sure thing," she agreed. "Let me know when and where and I'll be there." Turning and gesturing for Thea and the cameraman, the small entourage that she was going to have to get used to, to leave the office, she said, "Okay guys, let's go."

While she had been watching the exchange in silence, Thea had come up with a lot of questions that she wanted to ask. Making this documentary was proving to be exactly the kind of thing she enjoyed.


	3. Chapter 3

"That seemed to go well," Thea said to Ronda after they had walked out of Hunter's office.

"Need to find Bayley," Ronda muttered to herself, ignoring Thea's comment. "Let's go this way. Someone will know where she is." Making a right turn, she lead her small entourage down the hallway.

"The meeting went well, right?" Thea tried again, hurrying to keep pace with the taller woman.

"Yeah, it did," Ronda replied. "I've been in a stable before, but never just a regular tag team. Something new for me to try. And I like Bayley. She has a lot of talent and the fans really buy into what she's doing, for good reason. I think we can do some good shit together, and I think the fans will dig it."

Thea was about to say that she thought Ronda's idea to add the aspect about her character being reluctant to hug Bayley was a really good idea, but she found herself worrying that it might seem like she was sucking up to her, with it being so early in the filming. The first couple of days were going to be key in setting the right tone. The documentary was supposed to be about Ronda, but it wasn't supposed to be pro-Ronda to the point of being sickening. Instead, she went with one of the other questions that she had filed away in her head while listening to the discussion between Ronda and Hunter. "You used the Clothesline from Hell as your finishing move when you first came onto the roster, then you were given the RKO. Now you're back with the clothesline. Why have you been asked to change your finisher twice?"

"You tell me?" Ronda shrugged. "They asked me to use the RKO, then they asked me not to. It's as simple as that for me. I'm sure they had their reasons. Anyway, I like using the clothesline, it's a very hard hitting move to use for a finish."

There was a hint of something in Ronda's tone which seemed to suggest that she hadn't been as indifferent about the changes as she was making out, but Thea didn't get to push her on it because they saw Paige walking towards them along the hallway. The English woman was one of Ronda's least favourite people on the roster, largely because Paige had made it known that the feeling was very much mutual. In her view - a view which some of the other members of the Divas division agreed with but were less vocal about - it was tough for the other women to get big match opportunities, or even significant TV time when Ronda was around, unless they happened to be given a program to work with her.

"Ronda," Paige greeted her coolly. Even that was a concession due to the fact that Thea, and more importantly the cameraman were there.

"Paige," Ronda replied with an equal lack of warmth. "Where's Bayley?"

The abrupt nature of the question seemed to irritate Paige even further. "Ask me one on sport," she suggested sarcastically, and then walked past Ronda and her two companions.

Sensing the tension between them, Thea added Paige's name to the list of people that she intended to speak to for the documentary. For now though, continuing to trail Ronda was the order of the day. "That didn't exactly seem friendly," she said as they continued along the hallway.

Ronda gave a dismissive grunt. "Who cares? Some people work harder when they want to prove they deserve an opportunity in this business. Others just like to piss and moan about not getting things handed to them. Other people's insecurities aren't my problem, no matter how much they try to project them onto me."

Thea decided that it was time to push the point again, making sure not to give Ronda an easy ride. "But you would surely agree that some of the women don't get anywhere near the amount of time in the ring that you do?"

As she had the first time Thea had stood up to her, Ronda stopped walking and looked down at her. Her voice became quieter, but there was an aggressive edge to it, directed at the women that were being talked about. "There are some who aren't getting ring time. I think they take the easy option by blaming me for that. What they should do is blame themselves for not working hard enough to improve, and blame themselves for not going to Hunter and making him take notice of them." Her final sentence was delivered with real venom. "They're a weak lot, you know, some of the women on this roster. Weak. Feeble."

Ronda turned and carried on walking. Trailing slightly behind, Thea couldn't help but smile.  _Talk about shots fired_ , she thought.  _I've been with her for less than half an hour and I have headline material already: Rousey spits venom at members of the Divas division_.

When they walked into catering a couple of minutes later, Ronda saw Bayley sitting at a table with Nikki Bella and Sarita Lopez. Presumably they had been talking about their match later in the night while they had been eating. The plates in front of them were now almost empty. "You might as well get yourself some coffee or something to eat," she told Thea, getting the message across loud and clear that now wasn't a time for questions.

"Okay," Thea said. "We have to keep filming you, though. Are you not eating anything?"

"I had something before I came to the arena, and I'll get something later at the airport. I try to avoid what they serve here if I can. Food is something I'm quite choosy about to be honest. Seth and I don't do cheap, as you'll see when you visit our place tomorrow."

Thea knew that she was referring to The Venice Steakhouse, the restaurant that Seth and Ronda had opened a couple of months earlier. Word had it that the food there was pricey, but well worth it if you could afford it. "I'm looking forward to that," Thea said, looking over that distinctly less appetising offerings that were made available by WWE.

"Catch you later," Ronda said, more interested in going about her business than Thea's conversational pleasantries.

Nikki Bella was one of the few people on the roster who Ronda could call a real friend. They had hit it off almost from the start of Ronda's time in WWE, thanks to Nikki being willing and gracious in putting her over for her first Divas title win. From there, they had only grown closer, to the point where Nikki had been one of the maids of honor at Ronda and Seth's wedding.

"Hey, Ronda," Nikki said cheerfully as her friend approached the table. "Back at last. How are you?"

"I'm good," Ronda smiled back, then spoke to everyone at the table as a group. "What's up guys? Working on the match?"

"Yeah. Have a seat and join us," Bayley offered her new partner, gesturing to the vacant space beside her, opposite Sarita. Ronda pulled the chair out and sat down. The presence of the cameraman hadn't gone unnoticed, but no one chose to comment on it. They all knew what the deal was; Ronda was supposed to be being filmed going about her business as usual.

"We were just tossing ideas around for the double team finish that Hunter wants for you," Sarita said after finishing off a mouthful of salad.

Nikki laughed. "Yeah, and I volunteered Sarita to eat one of your clotheslines again."

The other three chuckled, then Bayley said, "The idea we've got is that I hit my Bayley to Belly, then instead of going for a cover, I get up, grab their legs and catapult them. You know the move I mean, the one people use after countering the Pedigree for example."

"Yeah," Ronda said, picturing it - not realising that it said something about how Bayley thought about working with her that she felt the need to explain every minor detail.

"Okay," Bayley continued, "So I catapult them. Just as I flip them over, you time your run to deliver the clothesline so that you hit them at the moment they're coming towards you almost as fast as you're coming at them. It should give quite a big impact; perfect for a double team finish."

"Sounds great," Nikki quipped good-naturedly, thinking about being the first one to take the new move.

It surprised no one that Ronda smiled. A hard hitting move like that was just the kind of thing that she liked. "Alright, I like it. We can go with that. It fits what Hunter wanted, and it should look good."

* * *

Twenty minutes later the four women stood up from their table and prepared to go their separate ways. Despite being filmed the whole time, the conversation had been relaxed and enjoyable for all. Ronda felt good about that. Being given a new tag team partner was not what she would have chosen for her return to action if it had been her decision, but as it was not her decision she had to get on with it. She had meant it when she told Hunter that she liked Bayley and respected her as a talent. If there was a positive aspect to her new role, it was that she wasn't being made to team with someone she didn't like. She knew that building a positive relationship with her partner outside of the ring would go a long way towards making the team a success in the ring, and the team being a success in the ring was something that she was determined to make happen.

Bayley had said that she felt the same way, and had responded enthusiastically to the additional angle of Ronda's character being a somewhat reluctant member of the team who didn't want anything to do with Bayley's character before or after the bell rang, especially when it came to hugging.

Plans for that night's match had been agreed. It was now just a case of waiting for the show to start and then for their place on the card. When Ronda stood up and saw Thea walking over towards her, she started to prepare answers for questions about what had just been discussed, or about Bayley, Sarita or Nikki. It was a surprise when Thea spoke to Bayley rather than to her.

"Hey, Bayley, I'm Thea. I'm working on the documentary with Ronda, as I'm sure you know. Have you got a moment to chat?"

"Sure," Bayley replied plesantly, without hesitation.

"I'll be in my locker room then," Ronda told Thea, feeling a little put out, although she wasn't entirely sure why. Nikki and Sarita had both noticed her discomfort and made a point of teasing her about it on their way out of catering.

Meanwhile, Thea had walked over to an empty table and invited Bayley to sit down opposite her. The cameraman took the seat beside Thea so that he could film Bayley as she answered the questions. In his opinion, the documentary would have been better if they had two cameras to work with so that someone could have also filmed Thea from the other side of table while she was asking the questions, but they had to work with what they had.

"Okay," Thea said when they were all ready to start. "I'm just going to ask you a few basic questions about Ronda for now. Won't take long at all."

"Great, let's do it," Bayley said enthusiastically.

Thea paused for a second before asking her first question to make the later editing process easier. "Bayley, how do you feel about teaming with Ronda Rousey?"

"I'm looking forward to it," Bayley said genuinely, with a smile. "I've not been on a tag team for a long time, and I don't think Ronda ever has, so it's something different for both of us. I think we'll be a team that the fans will really connect with, and for me that's probably the most important part of what we do. Whether you're a face or a heel, the fans have to buy into what you're doing for it to be a success."

Nodding her satisfaction at that answer, Thea moved on. "What about working with Ronda specifically? There are people who say she can be tough to work with at times."

"I've never had a problem with Ronda, honestly," Bayley replied. "We've only wrestled each other a few times, and I've lost all of them, which probably helped," she added with a giggle.

Thea grinned smiled broadly at that, having to hold back a laugh of her own. "So you don't really know Ronda all that well then?"

"No," Bayley said with a slight shake of her head. "She keeps herself to herself a lot more than people might imagine. I mean, she'll speak if you walk past her in the hallway or whatever. She's never been rude or ignorant, but unless you're the one who's going to be in the ring with her, she won't have much to say to you. We just had a good talk about tonight's match though, and she was open to the ideas that we were all putting out there. We've put together a finishing move that we think will be great too, so yeah, just waiting to go out there and enjoy the match now."

"Okay, last question for now," Thea said. "How much of the increase in popularity and quality of women's wrestling in recent years would you say is down to Ronda?"

Bayley thought for a moment before giving her answer. "Ronda has played a big part in it for sure. There's no doubt about the fact that people started to really get on-board with what was going on in the Divas division a few years ago because they enjoyed watching Ronda when she same onto the roster. At that time she brought something to the table that no one else was bringing: a much more powerful and impactful style of offense. There's a reason it looks like Ronda's beating the hell out you when she's in the ring with you; she  _is_  beating the hell out of you. She hits hard and she works stiff. When you've gone ten minutes with her, it really feels like it," she giggled.

"The fans enjoy seeing that kind of action though," she continued. "Back then, it was something unique for them to get behind, and boy did they get behind it. But the main person who we have to thank for the success of women's wrestling today, in my opinion, is Hunter. He's the one who showed faith in women to play a big part in WWE rather than being a footnote like we used to be, and he still does show that faith in us. Who would have imagined five years ago that we could see a women's match headline a WWE pay-per-view?"

"That hasn't happened yet," Thea pointed out.

"No, but it will," Bayley said confidently. "It's happened on NXT many times, so there's no reason it can't happen on the main roster. Who knows, maybe this new team of Ronda and I will get to be a part of it when it does?"

"I'd really like to see that happen," Thea said, bringing the short interview to an end. "Thanks for your time, Bayley."

* * *

_"Once the Survivor Series pay-per-view was underway, Ronda's demeanor seemed to change. She told me that she has a pre-match routine that she has to go through in order to be in the right frame of mind to go out and give her best in the ring. It was a strange thing to experience, seeing her sitting in her locker room in silence for about fifteen minutes. She explained that she uses that time to visualises the match she's about to go into, and the finish of it in particular. If she's not able to go through that preparation process, she feels awkward and distracted while she's in the ring._

_After the silent routine was done, I was given the job of writing on her wrist tape for her. On her left hand, she told me to write 'My lovely father,' a tribute to her dad who is no longer with us. Then she told me that I could choose to write whatever I wanted on her other hand. I was caught on the spot, so I chose the first thing that came to mind: my initials. So when Ronda went out to win the Divas Tag Team Championship, she did it with TMT written on her right hand. We got the signal that it was time to go when a runner came and knocked on the locker room door to tell Ronda that her match was up next."_

"That's what you wanted to go with?" Ronda said, looking at the back of her right hand as she walked out of her locker room. Turning slightly, she raised her hand and showed it to the camera. "You could have put anything you wanted, and you put TMT?"

"I couldn't think of anything else," Thea giggled sheepishly, following Ronda and the cameraman out of the door and closing it behind them. "It'll get people guessing at least. They'll be like, 'TMT? What the hell is that supposed to mean?'"

Ronda chuckled at that, which surprised Thea. Humour wasn't something that she expected from her, least of all right before a match, if the pre-match routine was anything to go by. "Just be glad my routine isn't the way it used to be," Ronda said. "It used to be half an hour, and silence until I went into the arena. I worked on it because it used to drive me fucking crazy having to do that a few nights a week. You know, the first time I was with WWE."

Thea couldn't pretend to understand. People all have peculiarities, she reasoned without saying anything. If it worked for Ronda and helped her to go into her matches with confidence, then that was really all that was important. "How are you feeling now?" she decided to ask. "There's an arena full of twelve thousand people out there, and they're about to go crazy when you come out."

"It's a strange thing, when you think about it," Ronda said, sounding a lot more reflective than Thea had thought she would. "There are so many people out there who like me, who want good things for me, yet they don't even know me. Most of them will never even meet me. I'm just an ordinary girl from Riverside, California who happened to make it big thanks to some big breaks and the support of all of those people. There would be no Ronda Rousey in WWE or Hollywood right now if it wasn't for WWE's fans always believing in me and supporting me. Sure, hard work helps a lot too, but it's fucking mad that so many people want me to do well. I live a blessed life and I'm trying my best to deserve it."

It was a tender side of Ronda that Thea wouldn't have imagined existed only a minute before. While she might not have been able to get along with some of her colleagues, and might at times be hard to manage too, there was no doubt that she was genuinely appreciate of the support that she got from the fans. When she had been researching Ronda in the weeks prior to starting filming, she had come across many stories of her going above and beyond what many other WWE Superstars would do for the fans. Part of Thea had wondered if it was all some kind of game or publicity stunt to Ronda, but now she believed otherwise. There was another side to the coin, though. Being popular with so many people had to have its negatives, such as not being able to go out for a meal in a restaurant without being recognised, for example. Thea could see how that kind of thing could drive anyone, but especially someone like Ronda, who seemed to have a fragile temperament, to the point of going crazy. She was a very complicated character, which meant that studying her over the course of the next month was going to be interesting to say the least.

"Have you ever found all of that public attention to be a lot to deal with though, even if it is mostly positive?" she asked gently.

"Yeah," Ronda said quietly, and Thea could tell that she didn't want to talk about it any further than that, at least not at that moment. There was no time anyway, as they were approaching the Gorilla Position, where Bayley, Nikki and Sarita were waiting for their segment to begin.

"Good luck," Thea said. Ronda didn't acknowledge her, she just walked away, over to where the other three women in the upcoming match were standing. Discreetly, Thea touched her cameraman's arm to tell him not to walk over there and intrude. There was a brief conversation between the four competitors while the promo for their match played in the arena and on TV screens around the world. Just before the promo ended, Hunter walked over and wished them all good luck.

A couple of minutes later, Ronda was entering the arena to a rapturous ovation. Hunter walked past Thea on his way back to the production office an gave her a little wink. "That's why I call her revolutionary."


	4. Chapter 4

_ Footage courtesy of WWE Network _

"What an incredible reaction this is for Bayley," Mauro Ranallo said as the former NXT Women's Champion went through her customary entrance routine in the ring. "Everyone's on their feet."

"You already know what I think," JBL griped. "This whole hugging thing is just childish. This is WWE; you don't go in the ring to hug people, you go in there to fight them."

Sarita Lopez and Nikki Bella, the Divas Tag Team Champions, had entered first and were looking on from their corner with a similar level of contempt. "I think the Champions agree with you," David Otunga said. "They've been wanting to get their hands on Bayley for some time now."

"Wanting to get their hands on her?" Ranallo asked, with emphasis on the first word. "Bayley has been beaten down by Nikki and Sarita on more than one occasion, yet every time she's challenged them to a fair fight, they've backed down. That is until tonight, when they were given no choice. They've openly said that they can't stand Bayley or the fans that support her and they want to take her out for good. Luckily, Bayley managed to find herself some help in the form of Becky Lynch, and that's why we have this tag team match here tonight at Survivor Series for the Divas Tag Team Championships."

Becky's music hit, drawing a cheer from the crowd, but it was nothing compared to that which Bayley had received moments earlier. "And her tag team partner," ring announcer Greg Hamilton called out, "From Dublin, Ireland, Becky Lynch!"

Becky's music continued to play, but after thirty seconds or so there was no sign of her on the stage. The music stopped, then started again from the beginning a few seconds later.

"We'll try that one again," Ranallo said, laughing off the awkward situation.

"And her tag team partner, from Dublin, Ireland, Becky Lynch!"

Again, there was no sign of Becky entering the arena. Bayley was now standing facing the stage, with her arms spread wide in a gesture of confusion. "Hello, Becky?" Otunga said, as if he was calling her out to the ring himself. "Time for your match. We don't have all night out here, okay?"

For a second time, Becky's music faded out and then restarted. Hamilton sounded slightly irritated as he began his announcement once more. "And her tag team partner, from Dublin..."

Nikki walked over and snatched his microphone away from him. "Turn that stupid music off!" she yelled at the crew backstage. The music duly faded out, being replaced by boos from the crowd for Nikki and her partner. "It looks like your so-called partner had second thoughts," Nikki sneered at Bayley, who eyed her two opponents wearily. "Hardly surprising really, I mean, why the hell would anyone want to team with someone as pathetic as you?" Laughing at her own insult, she handed the microphone to Sarita, which brought another chorus of boos down on them.

"We'll make you a deal though, Bayley," Sarita said, belittling her opponent with the tone that she used to say her name. "All you have to do is admit to Nikki and I, in front of all of these idiots that you like to suck up to so much..." She had to pause to wait out more boos. "All you have to do," she continued a moment later, "Is admit to Nikki and I that we are both better than you, and you are simply not good enough to deserve this title shot, and we'll let you leave without kicking your ass two on one. What do you say?"

"Discretion might the better part of valor here," Ranallo opined, "Much as I don't like to say it, taking on Sarita and Nikki by herself wouldn't be a smart decision for Bayley."

"Damn right it wouldn't," JBL said.

In the ring, Bayley seemed to be considering the offer that had been proposed to her. Hesitantly, she reached out and took the microphone from Sarita as the crowd began a "No!" chant, with accompanying hand gestures. "The two of you, against me, two on one?" she asked, looking at Sarita and then at Nikki. A look of sheer determination came onto her face. "Let's do it." The crowd cheered loudly as Bayley tossed the microphone out of the ring. The referee quickly made his presence known, forcing Nikki and Sarita to back off into their corner before he would start the match and telling them that only one of them would be allowed in the ring at a time.

"Looks like we've got ourselves a two on one handicap match," Ranallo said enthusiastically.

As he was speaking, the crowd had begun to sing, "Hey, we want some Bayley!" in support of the fan favourite in the match. The referee had imposed order in the ring and was about to call for the bell to get the match underway, but at that moment Ronda's music hit.

"Wait a minute!" Ranallo exclaimed as the crowd erupted. "What's going on now? Ronda Rousey is back, and she's coming out here! We haven't seen Ronda for two months, but here she comes! Look at her marching towards the ring, being roared on by the fans! Is she out here to get in Bayley's corner?"

The answer to that was no; Ronda had no intention of getting into Bayley's corner. After rolling under the bottom rope, she charged straight towards Nikki, who had been ready to start the match for her team and was now holding her hands up defensively towards Ronda, trying to say that she wanted no part of the four time Divas Champion. Her efforts were in vain because Ronda wasted no time in teeing off on her with powerful left hands, sending Nikki staggering back into one of the empty corners of the ring. The referee ordered the bell to be sounded, and the match was underway.

"We've got ourselves a tag team match now!" Otunga yelled excitedly. "There's no love lost between Rousey and either Sarita Lopez or Nikki Bella, and Ronda's come out her to get her some of the Champions. The bell has sounded and the titles are on the line."

"Nikki and Sarita didn't sign up for this," JBL protested. "What right does Rousey have to come out here and give herself a title match?"

"You can go try and stop her," Otunga suggested sarcastically as Ronda repeatedly stomped on Nikki, who was now crumpled up against the bottom turnbuckle. "But I think you'll be wasting your time."

* * *

Thanks to a combination of good teamwork, manipulation of the referee and cheating, Nikki and Sarita had managed to isolate Ronda in the ring, preventing her from tagging out to Bayley, and administering a thorough and professional beat down in the process. It was only when Ronda managed to reverse an attempted double suplex into a double DDT that the tide looked like it might turn. Bayley lead the fans in clapping to urge Ronda on as she crawled ever so slowly towards the corner.

"Can Rousey make it to her corner this time?" Ranallo asked. "We're yet to see Bayley enter the match. That's how well the Champions have managed this contest so far."

"Look at Bayley," Otunga said, "She's desperate for a tag."

Sarita had used the ropes to pull herself to her feet and realised the danger, but not quickly enough. She began to rush over towards Ronda, but as she did so, Ronda leapt the the last three feet towards Bayley's outstretched hand and got the tag. The crowd erupted as Bayley charged into the ring in a typical hot tag situation and began hitting both opponents with fast paced offense which they were powerless to defend themselves against.

"Bayley's on fire here," JBL admitted reluctantly.

After dominating both opponents for nearly two minutes, Bayley attempted to hit her signature Bayleycanrana on Sarita, but the Lethal Latina was able to counter it into her finishing move, a devastating sit down powerbomb. The powerful move almost silenced the crowd, who feared that the end of the match might be at hand.

"Lopez into the cover," Ranallo called out.

"One!"

"Two!"

Bayley's right shoulder popped off the canvas just in time. "Two and a half," Ranallo said.

Ronda was finally back up and came at Sarita as she got back to her feet, swinging away with her powerful left hands once more. The only defense Sarita could come up with when she found herself backed into the corner was to stick her thumb into Ronda's eye. The dirty move reversed the momentum again. Sarita grabbed Ronda and spun her around so that she was now the one with her back against the turnbuckles. While Sarita pounded away on one of the challengers, Nikki had picked up Bayley and suplexed her over the top rope, sending her crashing to the floor on the outside.

Next, Nikki shouted out a plan of some kind to Sarita and got ready in the middle of the ring to perform a move on Ronda. Sarita turned and acknowledged the plan with a nod, then whipped the challenger towards her partner. That was where it went wrong for the Champions, because Ronda used the momentum that had been generated for her to explode across the ring at Nikki and almost take her head off with a Clothesline from Hell. Surprised by the move, the crowd roared their delight.

Sarita reacted quickly to the fact that things had gone seriously awry for her team and began to hurry over towards Ronda, but Bayley rushed back into the ring and cut her off. Sarita tried to react on the fly and deliver a clothesline of her own to Bayley, but the fan favourite was able to duck it. On instinct, Sarita spun back around to face her opponent, which played perfectly into Bayley's hands, or rather her waiting arms. The crowd roared again as they recognised that Bayley was in position to deliver her finishing move.

"Bayley to Belly!" Ranallo called out as the move was delivered. "That could be it!"

"But wait, there's no cover," Otunga said, confused by the fact that Bayley had gotten back to her feet rather than pinning her opponent.

"What's Bayley doing?" JBL asked as she walked around her opponent and picked up both of her legs. Ronda took up a position in the corner of the ring, poised and ready to strike.

"Looks like Bayley and Rousey have something in mind, and I don't think Lopez is going to like it, whatever it is," Ranallo said.

Bayley fell backwards, using her leverage to catapult Sarita across the ring towards Ronda, who had started sprinting at just the right time to nail her clothesline at the moment where their combined impact speed was the greatest. The move sent Sarita for a complete back flip before she crashed to the canvas, drawing a reaction from the crowd which was somewhere between delight that the team they were cheering for now looked certain to win and shock at the force of the impact that Sarita had just taken.

"Ball game," was JBL's verdict. He was right. Bayley crawled over to Sarita and hooked her leg and the referee completed the three count, which was a formality.

The crowd continued to go wild as Bayley's music started to play and Ranallo announced, "We've got new Divas Tag Team Champions. Bayley and Ronda Rousey successful at the first time of asking here at Survivor Series. The fans can't get enough of it."

In contrast to Ronda, who remained in the centre of the ring without showing any kind of satisfaction at the victory as she tried to get her breath back, Bayley started celebrating wildly, running around the ring in delight before climbing up onto the middle rope in the corner of the ring closest to the timekeeper's position. The title belts were handed to the referee, who in turn handed them to Bayley when she climbed back down from the ropes moments later. Only then did Ronda approach her new partner. Gesturing to the title belts, Ronda seemed to fire some angry words at Bayley, as if furious at the fact that she was holding both of them. Bayley's music faded out, leaving the fans to wonder what might be about to happen next.

"I think Rousey took exception to Bayley having both of the title belts," Ranallo said. "This new team might be very short lived here unless Bayley can calm her down."

Bayley appeared to be trying to placate Ronda, and held one of the belts out towards her. Ronda aggressively snatched it from her, delivering some more harsh words in the process. Seeming surprised, maybe even somewhat hurt by the way she was being treated, Bayley spread her arms out wide, offering a hug to her new partner. The crowd responded by cheering loudly, encouraging Ronda to accept and embrace not just Bayley, but the new partnership as well. Bayley walked towards Ronda, but instead of a hug, she received an angry shove from Ronda, sending her staggering backwards towards the ropes. There was a groan of disappointment from the fans, but Bayley wasn't going to be deterred that easily. Gesturing to the belt that she was holding, she seemed to be saying to Ronda, "We just won the titles, what's wrong with you?" She then turned to the crowd and spread her arms once again while calling out loudly, "Do you want me to hug her?"

The loud cheer in response made Ronda look away from Bayley and out at the fans, who began to chant her name, hoping that it might somehow convince her to do what they, and Bayley, wanted. For a moment Ronda seemed to waiver on the brink of walking over and hugging Bayley, but then she waved her off with an emphatic, dismissive hand gesture. With that, she quickly rolled out of the ring, heading for the back. Bayley looked as downhearted as the fans sounded with their second groan of disappointment.

"Rousey and Bayley won the match, but they don't exactly look like much of a team right now," Ranallo said.

"Good," JBL said. "I knew Ronda wouldn't have any part of Bayley's hugging. She obviously thinks it's a stupid as I do. I'm glad she didn't let the fans bait her into doing it."


	5. Chapter 5

Considering it a good idea to stay out of the way for the moment, Thea stood a suitable distance away from the Gorilla Position while she waited for Ronda to walk through the curtain with her newly-won title belt. Having watched WWE's programming regularly for many years, she hadn't been surprised by the reaction that Ronda, Bayley and their match had gotten from the fans, but it was still a special thing to experience first hand, or as close to first hand as watching backstage on a monitor could be.

Hunter had appeared again and was currently offering a few words of praise to the former champions for the match that they had put on. Neither Sarita or Nikki appeared to be particularly disappointed about dropping their titles, which surprised Thea a little. Of course the whole show was scripted and a championship could be given to, or taken from anyone on the roster on any given night, but holding one was still a recognition of your hard work and talent. It then occurred to her that maybe they had just learned from experience that it was for the best not to get angry or upset when it came to putting Ronda over, especially on her first night back after two months on the injured list.

Thinking back to earlier in the night, Thea remembered Ronda dismissing out of hand the idea of a special working relationship between her and Hunter. Whether Ronda thought there was a special relationship or not, it sure seemed to Thea that there was, not that she could fault Hunter for it. The two biggest facts that most people who had an interest in the wrestling business knew about Ronda were that yes, she was a big draw, but she could also be hard to work with and manage. WWE's Chairman had found a way to manage her, and it was paying dividends for him. That was what business was about, when all was said and done, and WWE was a business before it was anything else.

Further evidence of the way that Hunter carefully managed Ronda soon presented itself when she walked through the curtain. Watching the two of them interact, Thea considered that she was watching a master at work in Hunter. What Ronda clearly needed was to be made to feel like she was an important, no, a vital member of the roster and that her performances were top notch. The impression was that as long as she felt that way, she would get along with others and put on good matches, but if not then things might start to go differently. Thea knew that Hunter had three daughters, and she smiled in amusement at the thought that in some respects the way he dealt with Ronda probably wasn't all that dissimilar to how he dealt with his children. Still, she reasoned, everyone was different. When it was all said and done her job was to make a documentary about Ronda, not to judge her.

Bayley came through the curtain a minute or so later and more congratulations were passed around, along with a brief, awkward looking hug between the new partners. Ronda was done with it all about as quickly as she could have been without seeming to be rude or disrespectful. When she walked over to to Thea, carrying her title belt over her shoulder, she offered a smile and asked, "What did you think?"

"I really enjoyed it," Thea replied honestly. "And so did the fans, by the sound of it."

As Thea finished her sentence, she saw that Ronda had noticed someone approaching from behind her. A broader smile appeared on Ronda's face and she said, "I wondered where you were." Turning around to see who she was talking to, Thea saw another member of the Divas roster approaching them. It was Elena D'Agostino, the first female Italian wrestler in WWE, and if popular opinion was to be believed, one of the brightest prospects in women's wrestling for some time.

"Ronda, welcome back! Nice job out there. You even found a way to hit that clothesline even harder," Elena smiled. If the attractive woman's dark hair, brown eyes and Mediterranean olive skin tone didn't say Italian clearly enough, then her heavily accented English certainly did. "The belt looks good on you, yes? Not as good as it does on Bayley of course," she laughed.

Ronda chuckled at that and then gestured to Thea. "Daga, this is Thea. She's here to make the documentary they're doing about me for the Network." Knowing that they were being filmed, Ronda put her arm around the new arrival and spoke directly to the camera before Thea could make any kind of introduction of her own. "You want to know who the future of women's wrestling is? This girl right here. She's a legit fucking badass, let me tell you. We saw that at Summerslam." Ronda was referring to a match that they'd had against each other - Elena's first pay-per-view match on the main roster. It was regarded as the most violent and bloody women's match in WWE history, a fact that both women were immensely proud of. Elena played an aggressive heel character who kicked ass and liked to talk shit while she was doing it. Her offense combined athleticism and power at the expense of speed and technique, which had lead to a very hard hitting encounter with Ronda and her own powerful style.

"Thank you, it means a lot that you said that," Elena said warmly. "But I'm not the future, I'm the present," she added with a chuckle.

"Not while I'm here you're not," Ronda quipped back.

Thea was happy to remain on the sidelines while Ronda talked to Daga, as she was apparently referred to by her colleagues, for a few more moments. It was important to Thea that she didn't try and insert herself into the documentary too much because the whole idea was to show Ronda's everyday life, not Ronda on tour with Thea Trinidad for a month.

When Elena made her excuses and walked away, Ronda began to lead the way back to her locker room. As she turned to follow, Thea saw Elena and Bayley share not only an embrace, but also a kiss. It wasn't a friendly peck on the cheek either, it was a real kiss, the kind that was only shared between couples.

"Yeah, they're together," Ronda said, letting Thea know that she had noticed her gaze linger for that split second. "Shame you can't go film some of that shit later tonight, huh?" she laughed. "That'd get the guys watching your show more than trailing around after my ass will."

"We're not here to film porn," Thea said, grinning back at her.

"Remember that tonight when we get home," Ronda said, smiling herself. "My bedroom is off limits to you when I'm with with my husband."

"Noted," Thea said dryly. "No Ronda and Seth sex scenes for this show. Viewers, you can all turn off now."

"And no Ronda in the shower scenes either," Ronda said as they approached her locker room. "Turn that camera off and get out of here for a bit. We can carry on later when I'm ready to leave."

* * *

The next real chance that Thea got to talk to Ronda was just after their private jet had taken off, heading for LA. "You sure don't hang around at the arena," she said as she relaxed into the seat beside Ronda. The cameraman filmed them from a seat on the opposite side of the cabin.

"Why would I?" Ronda asked disinterestedly. "I'd had my match and I've got a home to get to."

"I assumed you'd have to stay and watch the main event or something. Honestly, I imagined that would be a rule."

Ronda glanced at her with a quizzical expression on her face, as though she was trying to figure out if she was either joking or stupid. "Like I said, I've got a home to get to. I'm not going to hang around backstage for another hour when I don't need to. If I was staying locally, in a hotel or something then maybe, but not when I'm going home."

"Fair enough," Thea said, a little more defensively than she would have liked. There was an inherent slightly aggressive undertone to a lot of the things that Ronda said which would take a while to get used to. Wanting to bring a more positive tone to the conversation, she changed the subject. "So we're on the way to your house, where I'm going to get to meet your husband. Your relationship, or should I say your marriage, isn't something that either of you talk about much in the public domain."

"No, my marriage isn't something that needs to be public," Ronda replied easily. "Some people like to put their relationships all over Twitter and Instagram ten times a day, but Seth and I aren't like that. We like our private lives to be private, as much as possible at least. We're very happy together, and that's all that matters to us."

"There must be some of your fans, and some of Seth's fans, that would love to see more of you guys together though." It was a statement rather than a question.

"Well, they'll probably be watching this show when it goes out, won't they? So that's on you and your editors to deliver."

Thea wanted Ronda to be more open with her, but it was proving to be a difficult thing to encourage, maybe because she was tired. As if on cue, Ronda removed her glasses and rubbed her eyes with her hands. Thea wasn't going to give up that easily though, deciding that a touch of humour might help. "Come on then," she grinned, "I know you and Seth got together pretty quickly after you signed for WWE. Is love at first sight really a thing?"

"At first sight?" Ronda asked, considering it. "No, probably not. It wasn't for us. Don't get me wrong though, I thought he was fucking hot at first sight, then when I started to get to know him, I soon fell for him."

"Do you think his answer would be the same?" Thea asked with another grin.

This time she did manage to break down Ronda's defenses and she laughed. "You'd have to ask him that."

"Oh, I will," Thea said with a laugh of her own.

"He did say he's looking forward to making this show, and to meeting whoever they sent to film with us. Maggie is too."

"Maggie is your housemate, right?"

Ronda put her glasses back on and said, "Yeah, that's right. We've been friends for a few years now. It's fucked up how fast time goes by. I first met her not long after Seth and I got together, the first time that is. I was still a referee at the time. We'd gone out for a meal one night after a show. Roman was there and so was Dean Ambrose. I remember the restaurant's manager came up to us and asked if the guys wouldn't mind meeting a local girl who was a big Shield fan. He went on to tell us that Maggie had been in an accident and had sustained life changing injuries, having to have both of her legs amputated above the knee. Obviously there was no way the guys could say no to that, so her dad brought her in and she was just the sweetest, bravest girl I'd ever met. Still is actually," she finished, letting her voice trail off.

"I've seen some brief interviews that Maggie has given when people have recognised her and asked her questions about you and the friendship the two of you have," Thea said, softening her voice in response to the change of emotions she had seen in Ronda during her previous answer. Questions about how Maggie had gone from fan to friend could wait for another time. "Maggie has said that she considers you to be not just her best friend, but also an inspiration to her and to other women out there who want to believe they can do anything they want in life if they work hard enough. What does that mean to you?"

"It means a lot to me," Ronda managed to say, although the words struggled to come out as she choked up. Ronda quickly removed her glasses again and covered her face with her hands, as if embarrassed to cry on camera. "Sorry," she was able to mutter, but then her emotions really took over.

Watching the woman beside her lean forward with her head still buried in her hands as she cried heavily, verging on sobs, Thea didn't know what to say or do. That kind of reaction definitely wasn't what she had expected. Rather than saying anything awkward, she simply put an arm around Ronda, hoping that it would help somehow.

On the other side of the cabin, the cameraman lowered his camera a few moments later and turned it off. "I think we should take a break until we land," he suggested.

Thea nodded and continued to try and comfort Ronda, not that it seemed to helping all that much. The last few moments had given her a new level of respect for her subject. Contrary to what some people said, Ronda definitely wasn't just all about Ronda, that much was obvious.


	6. Chapter 6

"You have a really nice house," Thea said as she climbed out of the car that had picked them up at the airport.

"You haven't set foot in the place yet," Ronda said, climbing out of the front passenger seat and closing the door.

While the cameraman also got out and got himself and his equipment sorted out, Thea studied the house some more. Even though it was late, and therefore dark outside, there was enough light coming out of the house's huge windows for her to clearly make out that she was looking at a modern, spacious home with a streamlined appearance that would surely blend in with the others in the area in daylight. This was a neighborhood where people with money lived; people who had money but didn't like to openly flaunt it by by buying themselves huge, over-the-top mansions that were bigger than they would ever need. If Thea had a lot of money herself, Ronda's house was exactly the kind of place she would have loved to own. "I don't have to go inside, or see it in daylight for that matter," she added. "It looks great."

"Thank you," Ronda said. Thea wasn't sure if it was directed at her or the car's driver, who had just gotten their cases out of his trunk and raised the handle on Ronda's for her as he handed it over.

"Should I go in the house first so I can film your arrival?" the cameraman asked Thea, still used to how more conventional documentaries were filmed.

"Fuck that," Ronda quickly snapped at him. "We're having none of that reality TV bullshit with this thing, we've been perfectly clear on that. I go about my business, you film. That's what I signed up for, so that's damn well going to be what happens."

"You heard the girl," Thea said, unable not to grin at Ronda's bristly reaction. "I'll bring your case. Start filming."

"You got it." The red light on the camera came on, along with the powerful light that had just been mounted on top of it so that the viewers would be able to make out what was going on.

As the car backed out of the driveway, the three of them walked towards the front door, with Ronda leading the way. The door opened just before they got there. "I thought I heard car doors," Seth said from the doorway, smiling. "Hey baby," he said to his wife.

Watching Ronda almost jog into her husband's arms and kiss him, leaving her case behind a few feet away, Thea turned to the camera with an 'awww' expression on her face.

"I missed you, honey," Ronda was saying. "It really sucks when you're not on the road."

"I missed you too, babe. Are you going to introduce me to these guys?" Seth had noticed that they were being filmed. Although he knew the style that was required for the documentary, he would have at least liked to have been introduced to the two people who he would be spending so much time with over the next month before they got into it. As it was obviously not to be, he had to just go with it.

"Of course, sorry," Ronda said. Thea wondered how many other people Ronda was in the habit of making polite apologies too. Probably not many, she imagined. "This is Thea Trinidad."

"Hello, Thea," Seth smiled, stepping forward and giving her a peck on the cheek as she greeted him in turn. It was only a polite gesture, but the thought entered the back of Thea's mind that Ronda might be considering kicking her ass for it. Reminding herself not to confuse Ronda's on-screen personality for her real one, she noticed a smile on her face as she watched from the doorway.

"Head on in, guys," Seth said. "I'll get these cases."

"Kill that camera for a bit," Thea said to the cameraman. "We can film some more when we're settled in the house, or even just leave it until we're all feeling a bit fresher tomorrow."

Seth picked up Ronda and Thea's cases and carried them into the house. As he did so, he looked at Ronda and mumbled, "You going to introduce me to the guy or not?" There was a touch of humour in the question, born from a sense of awkwardness.

Ronda looked startled for a second and then burst out laughing. Thea wondered what was going on, but then it clicked. Ronda couldn't make the introduction because she hadn't spoken a word to the cameraman all night, and Thea hadn't thought to introduce them to each other either. The silliness of the whole thing made her burst out laughing too.

After looking at each of the two women for a moment, Seth's realised what they were laughing at, and he also laughed. "You haven't spoken to the guy, have you?"

"No," Ronda admitted through her laughter, then managed to compose herself and walk up to the cameraman, holding her hand out. "Excuse me. I'm Ronda."

"Hey, no worries, it's not about me," the cameraman smiled good naturedly. Taking her hand, he said, "I'm Adam."

While Seth introduced himself and shook hands, Thea followed Ronda into the house, which looked as impressive on the inside as it had from outside. Seeing the white marble staircase which was the centrepiece of the entrance hallway, Thea was almost lost for words. Incredible was the only one that came to mind. Waiting at the bottom of the stairs, seemingly almost trying to stay out of the way, was an attractive young woman with shoulder length dark hair and a nervous smile on her face. This time Ronda was on point with the introductions. "Thea, meet Maggie."

"Great to meet you, Maggie," Thea said, offering her hand. "I've heard a lot about you already."

"Oh no, off to a bad start then," Maggie said, her smile widening a little as she shook hands.

"Far from it," Thea assured her. "Ronda speaks very highly of you."

"Don't tell her that," Ronda snapped, feigning anger.

Playing along, already starting to get used to Ronda's sense of humour, Thea said, "Too late, your secret's out now."

Seth had carried two of the three cases into the house and now walked in with Adam's, closing the front door behind him. "I'll take your cases up for you and show you where you're sleeping," he said to the two guests. Adam insisted on taking his own case, so Seth took Ronda's instead and the three of them made their way upstairs.

Realising that Maggie wasn't used to the presense of TV cameras, Ronda gave her a reassuring smile. "Don't worry about all this shit, you'll soon get used to it. There's only the one camera following me, and Thea seems cool too, thank fuck."

"I'll do my best," Maggie said. "I just don't want to make myself look stupid in front of how many millions of people. It's pretty scary, honestly."

"Just be yourself, girl, and everyone will love you," Ronda said softly. "How could they not? They definitely won't think you're stupid, that's for sure."

Leading the way into the living room, Maggie found herself feeling a little better thanks to Ronda's words of confidence. She knew that the documentary was important to her best friend, so she was willing to do her best to take part in it and make it work. Maybe Ronda had been right when she'd first talked about the idea, saying that the best thing to do was act completely normally and try and forget the camera was there. "You know if Thea asks me questions about you, I'll give her honest answers, right?"

Glad to hear a joke from her friend, Ronda went with it, talking in a fake overly-aggressive tone. "You will not. You will put me over like there's no tomorrow or I'll kick your face in. I'm Ronda Rousey and I hate everyone who says bad things about me."

"So Paige and her buddies were right all along?" Maggie pondered, keeping a straight face as she sat down on one of the leather couches. "That's interesting."

Ronda groaned at the mention of her critics in the locker room as she sat down on another couch. There were three of them arranged in a U shape around an expensive glass topped coffee table. The usual deal was one couch for Seth and Ronda, one for Maggie and one for visitors. It would work fine with Thea and Adam as guests. "I saw that silly bitch tonight," Ronda said. "Blasted her and her crew of nobodies pretty hard to Thea too, so that'll definitely make it onto the show. Hunter will probably regret having this idea by the time we're done with it."

"I thought you told me it was Stephanie's idea?"

"Right," Ronda admitted, eyes narrowing a little as she thought about it. "I forgot it was Steph's idea, and I still agreed to it. I bet that surprised them. They'll think I'm mellowing in my old age."

"I think you're doing great," Maggie said, turning serious. "I can tell you're happier at WWE thanks to your therapy, and it shows the rest of the time too."

Ronda had been convinced by Seth to seek professional help to deal with the problems that she had with dealing with authority figures in her life, and also with keeping her ego in check. The doctor that she had seen had diagnosed Oppositional Defiant Disorder and some signs of narcissism. Thanks to the therapy, she had shown significant improvement over the past year in both regards, although neither of the negative traits could be removed from her personality entirely. Although Hunter was aware of these issues, they were considered private and would not be mentioned on the documentary.

"Thank you, I'm doing my best," Ronda said, and then moved the conversation on about as quickly as she could. "So, what did you think of the match?"

"It was really good," Maggie nodded appreciatively. "I like you on a team with Bayley. I'd never have seen it coming, but now that it's a thing, I think it's really cool. Everyone likes Bayley, so you guys could go off the charts if they use you right."

"Pretty big if," Ronda chuckled. "Honestly, though? Hunter has some pretty good plans for us on this one. And I like Bayley, she's a nice girl and a talented wrestler. I wouldn't have asked to be put on a team, but I'm actually kind of looking forward to it now."

"Maybe I should start on some designs for you guys?" Maggie suggested. A remarkably gifted artist, Maggie had a business selling her drawings and paintings through a website. Also, thanks to being so close to Ronda and Seth, she was sometimes commissioned by WWE to produce designs for merchandise, which she then received a royalty for. Hunter had also invited her to set up a stand at Wrestlemania Axxess earlier in the year, which had gone down very well with the fans. Maggie had decided to show her appreciation by painting a picture of Hunter over the course of those four days, and had then donated it for WWE to auction off for charity.

"You should," Ronda agreed. "I don't think they're going to give us a team name because the idea is that I act reluctant to team with her, as you saw earlier, but I'm sure a shirt with both of our faces on would sell."

"Hmmm," Maggie said as she started to visualise potential ideas. "Maybe something that's divided in half vertically. Bright purple on one side with Bayley smiling and the streamers and stuff, then the other side could be black with you with your game face on, serious as can be."

"I'm sure you'll come up with something great," Ronda said. "Creativity is your thing, not mine. I just beat people up for a living."

"No, you  _pretend_ to beat people up for a living," Maggie teased.

Seth walked into the room, followed by their two guests. "Does anyone want anything to drink?"

Yawning, Ronda said, "It's late and I'm tired. I think I'm just going to go up to bed."

"I could use some sleep too," Thea admitted.

"Me too," Maggie said.

"And I thought we'd be up all night talking," Seth smiled. Going to bed early worked, considering that it was highly likely there would be sex before any sleeping was done in his room. "So what's the plan for tomorrow?"

"Up early to hit the gym," Ronda said. "Then I figured we could go film at the restaurant before we open. I know Thea wants to include it, and she's going to want to have a sit down with you, and with you too, Maggie, if you're not busy tomorrow?"

"No, I can come over with you, no problem," Maggie said.

"Sounds like a plan then," Seth said. "Does that work for you, Thea?"

"We're here to follow, not to make plans for you," Thea said. "If you guys are going to your restaurant, that's where we'll go. I would like to sit down with you both though, as Ronda said."

They chatted about the plans for the following day for another couple of minutes, then Seth lead them all out of the living room and pointed out where the kitchen was to the two guests, should they want anything in the night. It was then that he remembered something he'd meant to say earlier. Turning to Ronda, he said, "I meant to tell you, the office called this afternoon. They want me to do the dates in Europe, like we thought. So we'll both be heading over to London at the weekend."

"Are you sure your ankle is okay for that?" Ronda asked with some concern.

"Feels fine, babe. I'm ready to get back in the ring."

Ronda knew that she didn't have to doubt his statement, knowing that he wouldn't lie about something like that. An idea occurred to her. "If we're both going over there, why don't you come too, Maggie? Road trip! Well, plane trip I guess."

"Oh," Maggie said, eyes lighting up at the idea. "I've never been to Europe before. I'd love to go to London with you." Looking at Seth, she added, "That's if you don't mind?"

"Of course I don't mind," Seth said warmly. "The three of us have never been away anywhere together. I think it's a great idea, even if we're working while we're there."

"Awesome!" Maggie exclaimed, looking like she wanted to bounce up and down in delight.

As she watched the conversation and noted the way the three of them interacted, Thea began to dismiss her earlier thoughts, which were that it seemed strange for a married couple to have a housemate. Now it was easy to see why they liked Maggie so much; for someone who had obviously been through a lot of hardship in her life, she was such a positive, bubbly person. The world needed more people like Maggie, she thought.

"You can keep this one busy and out of my way," Seth quipped, gesturing to Ronda with his head.

"Just because there's going to be a camera around, I'll still hit you for comments like that," Ronda warned him with a hint of a grin.

"Why do I get the feeling she means that?" Thea giggled.

"Because she does mean it," Seth laughed. "I take more beatings from her than anyone at WWE."

"Yet you still mouth off," Ronda said, smiling now. "Who's the stupid one?"

"Me, obviously," Seth said. After leaving a suitable pause, he added, "For marrying you."

"You fucker!" Ronda said, chasing after Seth, who had scurried away up the stairs, just like his on screen character would have done, leaving Maggie, Thea and Adam laughing at the bottom of the stairs.


	7. Chapter 7

"Looks like you guys have done a great job with this place," Thea said as Seth and Ronda lead her into The Venice Steakhouse, with Maggie and Adam following behind. Much like their house, the restaurant was an impressive, modern building and everything from the decor to the furniture said money. This was unmistakably a high class establishment, serving fine food to those who could afford it.

"Thanks," Seth said. "We've put a lot work into it. A lot of money, too. We actually had the place built from scratch. It's our pride and joy, and our retirement plan as well. We won't be wrestling forever, and we need something to fall back on when we're done."

While she seriously doubted that Seth and Ronda would ever find themselves struggling for money, Thea admired the forward planning. "What made you decide on a restaurant?" she asked.

"Eating is one of life's great pleasures," Seth said with genuine passion. "We both love eating good food, so we decided we could make money by selling it to people. So far, it's going well."

"Business is good?" Thea inquired, looking around again at the tasteful decor and furniture. Whoever had designed the place had done a very good job of it. Seth and Ronda had likely hired a professional to do the job for them.

"You can't move in here most nights," Maggie said. "People have to book a couple of days in advance to get a table. Word of mouth can be a powerful thing, and we've made sure our service is second to none."

The use of the word we made Thea wonder if Maggie also had input into the restaurant, and then it dawned on her. In conversation over breakfast that morning she had learned that Maggie was a professional artist. "Did you design this place Maggie? The decoration I mean."

"Not entirely, but I had some input. What do you think of it?"

"It looks fantastic," Thea replied honestly.

"I used to have a job in a bar that stood right here on this spot," Ronda told her. "I hated the guy you ran the place so bad. I remember when I quit my job there I told him I'd come back one day, buy the place and tear it down. It ended up that he went out of business before I came back, but I damn sure bought it and tore it down, just like I said I would."

"Nice," Thea said, for want of anything else.

As it was only mid-morning, the restaurant wasn't due to open for lunch service for another couple of hours. The staff were already hard at work though, with three waitresses busying themselves with cleaning and setting tables. A smartly dressed man who looked to be around forty approached the group and shook hands with Seth and then Ronda as greetings were exchanged. Thea didn't have to wait for Seth to handle the introductions to figure out that she was about to meet the manager of The Venice Steakhouse.

"Jack, this is Thea, and this is Adam. They're here to film the documentary about Ronda. We're going to do a couple of quick interviews here, but we'll be out of your way before opening time."

"We've got to have lunch here after we're done filming," Ronda decided. "We can't bring them here and not have them try the food."

"Right, of course," Seth said, chastising himself for not thinking of it himself. "You're okay with eating lunch here, guys?"

"Of course they are," Ronda said without hesitation. The idea of anyone snubbing her restaurant was clearly alien to her. "Where else would they want to go, McDonald's?"

Thea sensed the undertone to that comment. Ronda was going to be insulted and angry if there was any perceived slight on her restaurant, but there was a problem. "I'm a vegan," she announced delicately.

Ronda looked at her as if she had actually said that she'd just flown in from Mars, but Jack had a more customer-friendly response ready and waiting. "Not a problem. We have vegetarian options on the menu that are suitable for vegans. There's pasta dishes, potato dishes, vegetable options and salads."

"Excellent," Thea smiled. "That sounds perfect."

Even with the disaster averted, Ronda looked put out. She wandered off to inspect the work of one of the waitresses, but Thea heard her mutter, "Fucking vegan? Christ."

"Okay," Seth said awkwardly, not wanting an argument to kick off. "Shall we set up somewhere, Thea? You want to talk to me and Maggie, right?"

"Yeah," Thea said. More level headed than Ronda and also mindful of the clout that she had with WWE, Thea was happy to let her subject's little show of attitude slide, although it had shown her a glimpse of the side of her personality that some of WWE's Divas roster didn't appreciate. Whether there had been a reason to be irritated or not, there seemed to be a lack of a filter between brain and mouth where Ronda was concerned. "Let's set up at one of the tables. Who wants to go first?" she asked, looking at Seth and then Maggie.

"Are you okay to go first?" Seth asked Maggie, pointedly glancing at Ronda. The message was clear to Maggie: he wanted to go speak to Ronda in private and cool her down, in order to make sure things got better, not worse as the morning progressed.

"Sure, I'll go first."

A few minutes later, Maggie, Thea and Adam were set up at a table near the front of the restaurant, ready to film the day's first interview. "Can I just ask your surname, Maggie, before we start?" Thea asked. "We'll need to put it on screen the first time we show you."

"Wright," Maggie said, now feeling uneasy again at the prospect of being filmed. Millions of people could end up watching the interview that she was about to give, a fact that was hard to come to terms with.

"Great," Thea smiled. "Just so you know what to expect, I'm not going to go into how you met Ronda, how you became friends with her and all that stuff. I'd love to talk with you about that out of personal interest at some point, but it's not really applicable to the documentary. What I'm going to do is just ask you a few questions about what it's like to live with Ronda and to be friends with her, that kind of thing. It won't take too long at all. We'll most probably work in your answers to the questions at various points in the show where they are appropriate rather than showing the interview as a whole. There'll be a short voice-over piece to introduce you to the audience and let them know that you're Ronda's housemate, so we'll start right in with the first question when we start filming. Is that all okay?"

Maggie nodded to confirm her understanding, then Thea looked at Adam and asked, "All set?"

"Yep. Good to go in five, four, three..." He counted down the last two numbers with his fingers and then started filming.

Thea started with a question that would likely never be used on the documentary, sensing unease from Maggie. "How does it feel when you see Ronda on WWE television, wearing merchandise that you've designed?"

It was a cleverly thought out question, getting Maggie to loosen up by talking about something that she was passionate about. "It's awesome. I never expected anyone to think my drawings were any good. It was just a hobby for me. I sent Ronda a drawing I did of her not long after she made the active roster and I was blown away that she commented on it and said she liked it. Then the next thing I knew, WWE were contacting me about putting it on a shirt for her. I really couldn't believe it. Even now that it's a regular thing to see her wearing my designs, it's still incredible."

Smiling at the quality of the answer and pleased that the interview didn't look like it would be a tricky one, Thea moved on. "What is it like to live with Ronda?"

"When we're at home it's just like living with anyone else," Maggie replied with a grin. "There's a tendency, and I used to do this too, to think of the top people in WWE like they're superheroes or something, but the truth is that they're just like everyone else. Ronda is my friend. We do things that friends do together. We watch movies, we play video games, we go shopping, we just do all the regular stuff that everyone does with their friends. It's only in public that it's different."

It was common practice to smile often when interviewing someone in this manner, and it was easy for Thea, given that Maggie had even teed up the next question herself. "What's it like to be out in public with Ronda?"

"It's crazy sometimes," Maggie said, shaking her head at some memory or other. "It's got to the point now where a lot of people recognise her. They don't have to be wrestling fans anymore, thanks to the movies and the commercials. Wherever we go, people will come up to her, and to Seth, obviously if it's all three of us out together. A lot of people just go crazy, wanting pictures or signatures or whatever. It really can be wild. People will come over when we're eating, people will stop us in the street, people stop us in the supermarket. I mean, I get it, I've been a fan too. I still am a big wrestling fan, but it's like people don't realise that Ronda needs to have some private time too."

"And how does Ronda react to all of that attention? Does she find it intrusive?"

"Sometimes it is intrusive. But I have to make it clear that Ronda loves the fans, and she does her best to make time for people as much as possible. I remember one time we flew into LA and there was a whole group of fans there in the airport. Ronda must have spent ten minutes with them signing things and getting selfies. I knew she was tired enough to fall asleep on the spot after the day we'd had, but none of those people would have been able to tell that from how she was with them. Afterwards, I asked her how she can always be like that without it seeming to wear her down, or without snapping at someone to go away. She said, 'Ten minutes if my time can leave fifteen, twenty people walking away feeling like their day has just been made. For some of them it's something that they'll never forget. That's such a humbling thing, and it's the least I can do.' I thought that was pretty amazing."

Thea nodded in agreement before asking her next question. "You've seen encounters like that plenty of times, I'm sure. There must be some pretty remarkable reactions from some people when they meet Ronda?"

"Bear in mind that you're talking to someone who cried her eyes out when she first met the Shield guys and Ronda," Maggie said with a laugh. "But yeah, people crying is quite common. I think the funniest thing I've seen was some guy who asked Ronda to record a quick video message for him. He said a friend of his owed him fifty bucks and he wanted Ronda to say that she was on her way over to kick his ass. She recorded something real quick and the guy couldn't stop laughing."

"One more question," Thea said, thinking that her point had been missed with an earlier question. "You've said that Ronda loves to make time for people and tries her best to always do so, but it must get hard for her to deal with sometimes?"

"Yeah, sometimes it does," Maggie said reflectively. "Like, sometimes we'll go out to eat and we'll just want to have a nice meal in peace, but people will come over and ask for pictures or signatures. Sometimes she'll have to say, 'I'm on personal time right now, but I'll sign something for you when I'm done eating.' Most of the time people turn apologetic then, but sometimes they act like she's being out of order to them, and that gets to her. I mean, like I said before, she's human just like the rest of us."

"Thanks, Maggie. That'll do it for now," Thea said, and Adam turned the camera off.

"That wasn't as bad as I expected," Maggie grinned. "Will we be doing that again at some point?"

"Probably, if you're okay with that?"

"Yeah," Maggie nodded, pushing her chair back and standing up.

Thea did likewise as she said, "I'm going to ask Seth some similar questions, and then we can think about eating. Can't wait to try this place out."

Seeing that the interview was finished, Ronda walked over to them. After asking Maggie how it had gone and getting a positive response, she turned to Thea, noticing that the camera was back rolling and focused on them. They were taking the idea of filming all of the time quite literally. "You're going to interview Seth too, right? He's just gone through to the kitchen."

"Yeah, I'd like to," Thea replied. "And just to be clear, when we're at Smackdown tomorrow night, I need to talk to some of your detractors. Paige, for example. We need to get both sides of the coin for this documentary. I want to be up front with you about that."

"I appreciate that," Ronda said honestly, before a frostier tone took over. "If you want to get opinions from fucking idiots, go right ahead. Just bear in mind that people like Paige like to project their insecurities, weaknesses and self-doubt onto me. I don't like that and I don't let them do it. They hate on me because of their own shortcomings."

Thea was quickly getting used to how to talk to Ronda to get the right reactions. It actually wasn't all that hard. "Be that as it may, it's my job to get both sides, and that's what I'm going to do."

Ronda considered that for a second, then nodded. "Sure. Sounds like we have a plan for tomorrow night then."

* * *

_A/N: I know this story has been a bit slow paced so far, but stick with it guys. Things are going to pick up soon enough, I promise. ;)_


	8. Chapter 8

Thea could hardly have hoped for the documentary to be going any better so far. They were only two days into it and she already had some interesting insight into Ronda's everyday life, some very useful interviews with Seth, Maggie and Bayley, and some fantastic sound bytes from Ronda. Not only were those things all good news, there was also the fact that she and Ronda were getting along quite well too. Having started to get to know her, Thea knew that if the opposite had been the case, Ronda could have made the whole process a nightmare. That was just the kind of person she was.

"So what's the plan tonight?" Thea asked. They were in Ronda's locker room at the arena where Smackdown was going to be broadcast from later in the evening, having recently arrived in the building.

"I thought you might be about to tell me that," Ronda said with a distinct edge to her voice. "What do you need to do?"

"The first priority is to film you, as always. What do  _you_  need to do?"

"Same thing you filmed me doing Sunday night," Ronda shrugged. "Go see Hunter and find out what I'm doing tonight, then work out my match with my opponent. Then wait for the show to start. Then get the fuck out of this shit hole."

Getting something to eat in catering was not on the agenda because Ronda had made sure that they went to a local restaurant to eat before going to the arena. It was almost as if she thought she might catch something from the offerings that WWE provided for their employees. The problem was that the service at the place they had gone to hadn't been good, and the food hadn't been much better, which had put Ronda into a mood the likes of which Thea hadn't seen from her yet. Right now, she felt kind of glad that Adam and his camera weren't allowed into the locker room while Ronda was changing, for obvious reasons.

"God I hate it when Seth's not on the road with me," Ronda muttered, to herself as much as to Thea.

And there was the real reason for the bad mood, Thea realised. Ronda missed her husband. It seemed that he was a huge stablising force in her life, much as Hunter also seemed to be.

"Okay," Thea said, knowing that what she had to say next wasn't going to be welcomed either. "I'd like to speak to Paige tonight, and Stephanie too if she'll make herself available to me for a few minutes. Rumor has it the two of you haven't always seen eye to eye."

"Yeah, well rumor also has it that Stephanie doesn't work Tuesday nights, so you'll have to think again on that one, won't you?" Ronda snapped, talking down to Thea for the first time since they'd met.

Thea didn't like being spoken to like that, but she wasn't really in a position to give as good as she got. There was almost a full month of filming ahead of them, so alienating Ronda this early would make the documentary almost impossible to complete. Making an enemy of her and then trying to live with her would be hell. That didn't mean that she was going to take any bad attitude lying down though; she had more self-respect than that. "Yeah, I will think again on that, and you can think again on how you talk to me."

Ronda had already changed into her ring gear, which oddly seemed to be one of her first priorities upon arrival at the arena - maybe another part of her curious pre-match routines. It meant that she was at her most imposing when she took a step closer to Thea, standing fully seven inches taller than her. There was a menacing look in her eyes too, and for a moment Thea wondered if she might actually be about to get a smack in the mouth. "You want to give me shit tonight, Thea? That's how we're going to do this?"

Standing her ground and keeping her nerve, Thea put some more force behind her next words. "How we're going to do this is with you speaking to me with some respect. Have I done anything to anger you? No. Have I been rude to you? No. I'm just doing my job, which is to put across both sides as far as opinions of you are concerned. You are not going to bully me out of doing that."

Ronda took that in for a second and then took a step back. She gave a dry laugh, which eased the tension in the room somewhat, then nodded at Thea out of what might have been respect. "You know, Thea, I've considered opening a business when I'm done with wrestling. I'd call it rent-a-spine. Unlike most of the people around here, you've already got one. What do you say we go find Hunter?"

It wasn't an apology, but it felt like one to Thea. It was as close as she was going to get to one, that was for sure. The image she had in her mind was of Ronda talking to some of the other women on the roster in that manner, over some issue with creative for example. A talking point had presented itself, so Thea decided to go for it. "Actually, I'd like to film something quickly, if we can get Adam in here?"

"Okay," Ronda agreed, out of confusion as much as anything.

Thea opened the door and stuck her head out into the hallway, where her colleague was waiting patiently. "Come in here, please. I just want to film something quickly."

Adam walked in and started filming as quickly as he could, focusing on Thea. "We've just had the camera off while Ronda was changing," the presenter began. "We had what I guess you could call a rather tense exchange of words, and I called Ronda out for trying to intimidate me." She looked over at Ronda, who was clearly confused as to what was happening. "It got me to thinking, Ronda, do you think you've ever intimidated any of the other women on the roster?"

Put on the spot as the camera turned to her, Ronda still barely missed a beat before answering, showing real vigour. "I should damn well hope so. If I have a problem with someone or we're having a disagreement, I expect that I do intimidate them. And I expect them to try and intimidate me right back. That's how you get down to the real issues, not sneaking around, whispering behind people's backs. Things should always be dealt with by force of argument, not by sticking a knife in someone's back. If I disagree with someone, I tell them. What people really might be upset about is that I win the arguments some of the time."

Adding another brilliant sound byte to the small but growing collection made Thea smile slightly as she signaled Adam to kill the camera, but she also had to admit that she felt a sense of admiration for the woman in front of her. Was Ronda ever going to be everyone's cup of tea at WWE? No chance. But there was no way anyone could doubt that she was a strong, driven person who knew what she wanted and would fight as hard as she could to get it. She was also an egotist, but in some ways that could be considered a compliment as much as a criticism. What Thea saw were some leadership qualities. Certainly not the qualities of a popular leader, but definitely those of an effective and respected one. It was an interesting thing to think about while she waited in silence in Hunter's office, staying out of the discussion about the plans for that night's show.

"You're going over Naomi tonight, Ronda," was Hunter's opening statement.

The way he said it made Ronda's first question rhetorical. "In a squash? A singles squash on the first show after Bayley and I form a tag team and win the titles? What gives?" Those were much better questions.

"The development of your storyline is being done backstage," Hunter clarified. "We've got you and Bayley as a face team, obviously. We've got Nikki and Sarita, who are pissed that they lost the titles to you. We've got Daga, who just likes to beat people up, and we've got Emma, who's been playing the cowardly heel role ever since she won the Divas title. So what we're going to do is have Emma explaining to those other three heel Divas that a Rousey/Bayley team is a bad thing for all of them, and it's better if they work together to finish it before it gets started. Someone asks how exactly they do that. Emma says, 'Follow me,' and the next time we see them, all four of them attack Bayley in a hallway, beating the living crap out of her."

"Then what?" Ronda asked. The fact that it was her first interruption told him a lot. She was hooked on what he was describing.

"Then, when they leave Bayley all busted up on the floor, she's lying near an entrance door by the way, you 'arrive.' Right now, people don't know if you and Bayley really are a team, or if you give a damn about her, any of that stuff. We want to keep that going because of the hugging angle. You're on a team with Bayley, but you have no time for her, you don't want to interact with her. You already know what the deal is. So when you walk into the building and walk past her, all you do is glance down at her and shake your head on your way past, like, 'Is that how pathetic you are?' You don't stop and help her or show any concern for her well-being. It will keep people guessing."

"Alright," Ronda said simply. "We're going to do something bigger next week in London though, right?"

"Yeah, we are," Hunter assured her. He had no idea how right he was.

* * *

"Hey, Paige. Excuse me," Thea said, approaching Paige and Emma, who were having a friendly chat, sitting on top of some equipment boxes in one of the hallways. Finding the English Diva had taken Thea a few minutes, but it promised to be more than worth it.

"What's up?" Paige asked, politely enough. She knew who Thea was and why she was there, but that was no reason to be rude to the woman. She was just doing the job that she'd been hired to do.

"I'm sorry to interrupt. I'm Thea Trinidad and I'm..."

"I know why you're here," Paige helped out. "You want to talk to me about Rousey. Let's do it."

"I'll leave you to it," Emma said knowingly, dropping down off the crate to make way for Thea. Paige had already mentioned to her how much she was relishing the chance to have her say on Ronda.

"So is what I say actually going to make the show, or is this really just a waste of time?" Paige asked as Thea climbed onto the crate beside her and made herself comfortable.

"I'm not in a position to make promises," Thea said evenly. "WWE will have the final say on editing, so if I told you I could guarantee what you say will go out, I'd be lying to you. What I can say is that I was specifically instructed not to make the show entirely pro-Ronda. She has her faults and she has her critics, and they are going to be represented to the audience. At least, that's what they've told me."

"Fair enough," Paige nodded, appreciating the honesty of the answer. "I'm ready when you are."

While Adam got himself sorted out, Thea said, "I'd like to start by asking you about something that I've just been talking to Ronda about, then we can move on to some other questions about why you are critical of her. You would describe yourself as a critic of Ronda, right?"

"Not sure that's the term I'd use," Paige chuckled. "But you can go ahead and call me a critic if you like."

Smiling in amusement, Thea looked at Adam. "All set?" He nodded and counted her down to start the interview. "Paige, I've just been talking with Ronda and we had what you might call a heated exchange. I challenged her for trying to intimidate me, then I asked her if she's ever tried to intimidate anyone on the Divas roster. She said that she hopes she has, and she expects that if there is a difference of opinion that people would try and intimidate her right back." Paige gave a grunt of a laugh at that, but Thea continued with her question. "Have you ever had any heated exchanges like that with Ronda, and if so, what are your opinions on how she handles herself when talking to her colleagues?"

"Ronda and I have exchanged angry words before, yes. She's exchanged angry words with most people here. There's something you need to realise about her. When things are going her way and everyone is pandering to her, she's fine. She'll have a laugh with you, she'll co-operate with you on putting matches together and all the rest of it. But when someone dares to ask her to do something that doesn't suit her? That's a whole different story. I remember one time in an informal creative meeting, there was me, Ronda, Hunter, Stephanie and one of the writers. I can't remember his name. Anyway, it doesn't matter. Stephanie had proposed a series of three matches between Ronda and I, with me winning it two to one. They thought I didn't have much momentum at the time, so they wanted Ronda to put me over to 'get me back on track,' as Stephanie put it."

"Ronda didn't see it that way?" Thea guessed.

Paige nodded. "We were talking over how the three match series was going to go. The idea was that Ronda would win the first match, then I would come from behind and win two in a row. Ronda doesn't lose often, especially not clean, so I admit it would have been a pretty huge deal for me to go over like that, and I would honestly have really appreciated it if she had done it. But of course this is Ronda we're talking about. When Hunter laid out the plans to her, you should have seen the look on her face. It was like he'd asked her to go and clean the bathrooms using only her tongue. She was like, 'I'm not losing clean to her twice in a week. That makes no sense.' There was a lengthy discussion about it, with Hunter trying to talk her round, which is a joke in itself. Anyone else gets told what they're going to do and they have to go out there and do it, but Ronda? Oh no, Ronda has to be happy with it first. We can't have Ronda offended, whatever we do."

Reminded of something, Thea said, "People used to say that Vince McMahon used to work with Shawn Michaels in a similar way to that, way back when."

"Exactly," Paige nodded, impressed with Thea's knowledge of the history of the business. "The problem was that this time Ronda just wasn't having it. She was determined not to put me over. She was coming with all kinds of objections to it. I could tell that Stephanie was getting pissed off with it, and I definitely was. Hunter explained to her for the second or third time how important this was going to be in terms of giving me my first push for a while, and Ronda just sits there with her bad attitude. She shrugs it off and goes, 'This is getting tiresome now.'"

Real anger was apparent in Paige's voice now as she thought back to the encounter, and Thea noticed her hands clenched into fists as she continued to recount what had happened. "That was the final straw for me. I said, 'You know what you're going to find tiresome? When I pull you across the table and beat the shit out of you.' Stephanie and the writer laughed at that, thinking I was going to say something else to let on that it was a joke, but Hunter wasn't laughing. He saw that I really was going to go for her."

Thea's eyes had widened at that part of the story. "You were really going to get into a fight with Ronda?" she asked with a hint of scepticism in her voice.

"You're damn right I was," Paige said firmly. "I might not have won the fight, but I would have got some shots in. And you know what's worse? After Ronda and I had a shouting match for a few minutes, Hunter ended the meeting. The next thing I know, he's changing the plans we'd been discussing, saying he couldn't rely on me to be professional with Ronda. I mean, for Christ's sake, what is that about? I ended up getting a program with Becky. Don't get me wrong, I love Becky, but beating her isn't beating Ronda, in terms of getting a push."

Keen to get the perfect sound byte, Thea asked a question that she knew would be provocative. "Is there anything you want to say to Ronda now?"

Paige's expression hardened even more. "Will she see it if I do, even if it doesn't make the show?"

"If you want her to see it, I can make sure she does," Thea promised.

With that guarantee under her belt, Paige turned towards the camera, in order to talk directly to Ronda. "Rousey, you talentless fucking egomaniac. Let me tell you exactly what everyone on this roster owes you. It's the same thing that the rest of the world owes you, and that's nothing. No one owes you a thing, despite what you obviously think. And I'll tell you something else: your matches suck. All you've got is the fact that people let you work stiff on them in the ring, and that makes you look good. It makes you look tough, and the fans lap it up. But what talent have you really got? Huh? You're good at getting Hunter to see things your way, I'll give you that. And you're good at getting people to cheer you. That's it. You're just a below average wrestler who gets by on the fact that people like you, for what reason I don't even know.

"And I know what your first instinct is going to be when you watch this. You're going to get mad and you're going to decide you want to fight me. Then your weasel of a husband, and fuck knows what he sees in you by the way, will get into your head and talk you into playing the politics game instead. He'll tell you to go to Hunter with this and drop me in the shit with him. Well don't, Ronda. If you want to come at me, go ahead. I'll fight you, and I'll beat some respect into you. I'm talking about respect for me, respect for the rest of the roster, and respect for the business. And while I'm at it, I'll slap that stupid mole off your face. You make enough money now with your ridiculous contract, your sponsorships and your crappy fucking movies, I'd have thought you'd be able to afford to get your face fixed."

"God damn," Thea said, almost in awe of the outburst. "I think that'll do it for now."

Paige took in a deep breath and blew it back out, calming herself down as Adam turned off the camera. "It felt good to get that off my chest. Thanks, Thea. Make sure she sees that. I'll see you around."

As Paige walked away, Thea and Adam just stared at each other for a moment. "That was savage," the cameraman said.

"Wait until Ronda sees it," Thea replied, not sure if she was relishing the prospect or dreading it.


	9. Chapter 9

Sleeping on a plane had never been something that Thea was able to do easily, which wasn't good considering that the flight from LA to London's Heathrow airport was scheduled to take more than eleven hours. At least WWE had booked her and Adam in first class along with Seth and Ronda, who had also organised a first class seat for Maggie. Thea wasn't sure if they had managed to pull strings and get that extra seat paid for by the company too, but it definitely would not have surprised her.

With sleep ruled out and the in-flight entertainment consisting of movies that she had already seen, Thea had decided to spend the time putting thought into the documentary and the plans that she had for the rest of it. There was also time for reflection on what had happened so far. Perhaps the most surprising thing to date had been Ronda's reaction to Paige's aggressive rant about her, or rather the lack of reaction to it, at least compared to what Thea had expected.

"Doesn't surprise me," Ronda had snorted after she'd watched the whole thing. "That's the way some people are around here. When the only thing a person can do is resort to personal insults rather than coming to you face to face to argue their points, you know what kind of weak individual you're actually dealing with."

"I expected you to want to go find her and have a fight about it or something," Thea had said, rather frankly.

"Fight her?" Ronda had looked at her quizzically. "Why? Because she insulted me? That says a lot about her and nothing about me. Have I insulted Paige at any point? No. All I've said is that I find her to be weak. That's my opinion and I'm entitled to it. All she's done with this little outburst is prove me right. If she has a problem with me, my locker room isn't hard to find. It's the same as that meeting she was talking about, where Hunter asked me to lose to her twice. You want to know why I refused? Because it made no sense, and no one came with a reason as to why it made sense. They just wanted me wrestle Paige three times and lose two of them out of the blue. No build to it, no rivalry, nothing. That's why I refused it. It wasn't personal against Paige, despite what she might think. I rejected the idea because it was crap. Look at my record with WWE and you can't possibly tell me I don't put people over. I've never won a match at Wrestlemania. If they had come with a good idea that ended with me putting her over that actually had a purpose, I would have done it. Of course, she didn't mention any of that to you, did she? No. It's all about poor little Paige not getting what she wants."

And that had been that. Thea had been left thinking that she wasn't sure which version of the story was closer to the truth, or whether they both were and it was just that Ronda and Paige were people with two very different outlooks on how business should be done. She decided that it would be good to speak to Hunter himself on the subject if the opportunity presented itself. Regardless of who was right, it seemed very strange to her that Ronda had the stroke to outright veto a creative idea like that. It sure looked like favouritism, despite what Ronda obviously believed. It was impossible to believe that things would have gone the same way if it had been Paige trying to refuse to put her over is a similar situation.

The rest of the previous week had been spent following Ronda to events that had been organised first by WWE - a meet and greet on Wednesday and a Make-A-Wish visit to a children's hospital on Thursday - and then a photo shoot for Adidas, her main sponsor, on Friday. It had been a frantic schedule, but the filming had gone well and they had gotten plenty of good material that could be used for the show.

Things had slowed down to a much more reasonable pace over the weekend, with Seth and Ronda spending time at home together like any other married couple. Thea had found it nice to see how happy there were together. Again it had struck her that Ronda's demeanor was a lot different when she was around Seth. There could be no doubting the fact that he was a stabilising force in her life. Thea was also starting to genuinely like spending time with Ronda too. Once you got to know her a bit and she loosened up around you, she could actually be a lot of fun. The two of them had shared some stories from their past over a few glasses of wine, which had resulted in almost hysterical laughter on several occasions.

Absently looking around the cabin, Thea's gaze settled on Adam for a moment, which caused her to grin as she thought about the weekend's other notable event. After Seth, Ronda and Thea had gone to bed Saturday night, Seth had gone back downstairs for some reason. On his way past the living room, he had glanced in there and had seen Adam and Maggie making out on the couch. Unclear as to exactly how Ronda and Seth thought of their housemate, Thea had wondered if the rocket would go up when Ronda found out about it the next morning, and had suspected that she might call off the whole documentary and throw them out of the house, but that hadn't been the case at all. For some reason, Thea had gotten the idea in her head that there might be some kind of protective, almost parental instincts from Ronda and Seth towards Maggie, but she had been proven wrong on that. Ronda's reaction, far from anger, had been to tease Maggie about it. Not only had that been a relief, it had also been amusing.

Sleep definitely wasn't on the agenda for Adam or Maggie either, Thea saw. They had asked to be seated together and were talking the flight away as if there was no tomorrow. It was impossible to feel anything else but happy for them because from the little that Thea knew about them, they both seemed like genuinely nice people who deserved happiness. If it worked out that they were able to find it together, good for them.

Closing her eyes again in a vain attempt to find sleep, Thea found herself looking forward to spending a couple of days in London. It was going to be her first time visiting England. While Tuesday was going to be spent with Ronda and Seth at the O2 arena for Smackdown, they had set Wednesday aside for some private time in order to do some sightseeing. That promised to be fun, she thought.

* * *

"This can't be good," Seth mumbled to Ronda. They had just arrived at the 02 arena, with Thea and Adam in tow as was now always the case. Approaching their locker room, they could see that there was a runner waiting there for their arrival, which could mean only one thing: One of them was going to be summoned to see the boss for some reason. If it was urgent enough to have someone standing there waiting for them, there had to be some kind of problem. "Ten bucks says it's you," he grinned at his wife.

"No bet," Ronda chuckled. "I've probably said or done something to piss someone off. Either that or someone else has, and I'm going to get the shit for it."

"Ronda, you're wanted in Hunter's office right away, please," the runner said when he noticed them approaching.

Much as she would have liked to, there was no point in griping at the guy about not even making it into the locker room yet, so Ronda just allowed him to lead the way, purposely not looking at Seth so that she didn't have to see the grin that she knew would be on his face. It would only have started her laughing, and she had the feeling that whatever was going on, walking into Hunter's office laughing wasn't going to be an appropriate thing to do.

Sensing that something out of the ordinary was going on, Thea decided that the best thing she could do was keep her mouth shut, stay out of the way and let Adam film whatever was about to transpire.

When Ronda knocked on the door to Hunter's office and walked in, she was surprised to see that the place was almost full. Half of the Divas roster was in there, along with the boss himself. "Ah, Ronda, good," Hunter said. "You're the last one I needed." It was a simple statement rather than an accusation; she had arrived well before the call time.

"What's going on?" Ronda asked, looking around at everyone who had apparently been awaiting her arrival. Emma, the current Divas Champion, was there along with Bayley, Elena D'Agostino, Sarita Lopez and Nikki Bella. The first thing Ronda noticed was that Emma looked very upset.

"Emma hurt her back at a live event a couple of nights back," Hunter said. "We've had some scans done on it today, and it's going to require her to take some time off. It's a real shame, but it obviously means we've got to do something with the title. Emma has said that she doesn't just want to forfeit it - she'd rather put someone over, so we've given her some injections to get her through a match tonight, although she obviously can't take many bumps. We're going to make it the main event, which is the first time a women's match has been the main event of a WWE show in England. After the long reign Emma's had, no one will be expecting the title to change hands. It should go over well."

"But who's going to get to be the new Champion?" Nikki asked, which told Ronda that the others had heard the story up to this point before she had walked in, but no further.

"We've been working on that all day," Hunter said. "We've managed to come up with something that I like. So, here's what we're going to. The title is going to go on you, Daga." Before the Italian Diva could thank him for giving her the first title reign of her career, Hunter added, "But not tonight. You against Emma would be heel versus heel, and that's no good. We also wanted to do something a bit special with Ronda tonight because it's the first time she's been to England with us since she re-signed."

When she heard that, Ronda expected to be told that she was going to win the title later in the night, only to drop it to Elena the following week. That wouldn't be a problem for her, she decided immediately. As Hunter continued though, she soon realised that she was wrong.

"What we're going to do tonight is put the title on you, Bayley," Hunter said, smiling at the soon-to-be Champion, who would also be winning the strap for the first time. "Then next week, you're going to drop it to Daga. I assume you don't have a problem with that?"

The question was an attempt at humour. It was obvious that Bayley would have no problem putting her girlfriend over for the title. "Of course not," Bayley giggled, looking at Elena with something approaching delight at the prospect, knowing how much it would mean to her to be the Champion.

Creative thinking not being her strong point, Ronda was confused. "Where do I come into all of this?"

"I'm about to tell you," Hunter replied. Over the next five minutes he outlined the rest of what he had planned for later in the night.

* * *

_Footage courtesy of WWE Network_

Bayley was in the middle of some warm up exercises backstage when she was interrupted by Nikki Bella, Sarita Lopez, Elena D'Agostino and Emma. The four women who had inflicted a sickening beat down on her the week before quickly surrounded her, leaving her with no means of easy escape.

"Bayley, maybe you can tell me why Sarita and I have just been told that we can't have the rematch that we're owed for our tag team titles tonight?" Nikki began, talking to Bayley as though she was the lowest form of scum on the planet. "You know, the titles that you and Ronda Rousey stole from us at Survivor Series?"

"And even worse that that," Sarita said from behind Bayley, "We find out that you've been put in the main event tonight, wrestling Emma for her Divas Championship. Why is it that you get two title matches in less than two weeks?"

"Maybe someone felt sorry for me after the four of you attacked me from behind and beat me up last week, for no reason?" Bayley suggested sarcastically.

"Oh, there was a reason," Elena assured her. "We had to do something about you and Ronda teaming with each other. That idea didn't work for us. But we don't have to worry about that tonight, do we?"

"That's right, we don't," Emma said, getting up close to Bayley and brushing some of her hair away from the side of her face in a gesture that only seemed even more threatening because of how gentle it was. "Because we all know there's no way Rousey is going to be here tonight. She's not going to show up in this embarrassment of a country, is she?"

Drawing cheap heat like that was easy. The crowd in the arena booed loudly as they watched on the big screen.

"Even if she was here, we all know Ronda doesn't want to team with you," Elena sneered. "Even your so-called partner doesn't give a crap about you."

"You're right, Ronda's not here tonight, and she might not want to team with me for all I know, but I don't need her help," Bayley said defiantly. "I can beat you one on one, Emma. I won't need anyone's help to do that. But is it going to be one on one, or is it going to be four on one like it was last week?"

"You think I need help to beat you?" Emma snapped back at her, offended by the suggestion. "I can easily beat you one on one, Bayley. And that's exactly what I'm going to do. There will be no outside interference tonight."

"That's right," Sarita said. "We're going to watch from the back and enjoy the beating that Emma gives you. Then when she's beaten you and left you lying in the ring with one of our tag team title belts, we might come down and have some fun with what's left of you."

"See you later, Bayley," Nikki snarled, then slapped her hard across the face.

"I've got a bad feeling about this for Bayley," Mauro Ranallo said, then the show went to commercial.

* * *

The main event had been underway for more than ten minutes, with Emma having the upper hand for almost the entire contest. "You've got to hand it to Emma," JBL said. "She told us she'd come out here tonight and take Bayley apart one on one, and that's exactly what she's done."

"So far," Ranallo added poignantly. "One thing we know about Bayley is that she's someone you can never write off. She never gives up."

Emma whipped Bayley across the ring, intending to send her into the ropes, but the referee found himself in the way and was unable to react and move quickly enough. Bayley hit him full force, sending flying through the ropes out to the floor, where he lay motionless. "Oh, Bayley just inadvertently took out the referee," Otunga said.

The challenger, perhaps unwisely, turned to check on the referee. Taking full advantage of the mistake, Emma ran at Bayley and hit her in the back of the head with a powerful forearm. After Bayley collapsed to the mat, Emma glanced out of the ring at the referee. Seeing an opportunity, she turned towards the entrance ramp and began beckoning for someone to come out.

Someone actually turned out to be three people. "Come on now," Ranallo complained. "Here come Sarita, Nikki and Elena. We saw these four women bullying Bayley backstage earlier tonight."

"Now you're going to see it again," JBL said, relishing the prospect.

"Emma said she was going to fight Bayley one one one," Otunga complained.

The three new arrivals all rolled into the ring and joined Emma in brutally kicking and punching the fallen Bayley, who tried her best to curl up into the fetal position and protect herself from the blows. The crowd booed loudly at the sickening display.

"Looks like she lied," JBL said with an unseen smirk as the attack continued.

"This isn't a wrestling match, this is a mugging," Ranallo said.

After a few moments, Emma hauled the nearly lifeless Bayley to her knees and then shoved her towards Sarita, who got her in position to deliver her finishing move - a sit down powerbomb.

"Come on, this is not right," Ranallo said angrily as Bayley was lifted into the air. "Sarita Lopez with a sit down powerbomb on Bayley. This is not fair, JBL. How can you be enjoying this? Bayley is being crucified by these four women, and there's no referee to stop it."

"It's a fantastic main event," JBL said. "What's not to enjoy about it?"

In the ring, Emma was issuing more instructions to her impromptu teammates as she hauled Bayley back to her feet again. This time Elena rolled out of the ring and pulled a steel chair out from under the apron. The crowd began to chant "Becky" as Elena got back in the ring, in the hope that the Irish Diva might come to Bayley's defense, having originally been scheduled to be her partner at Survivor Series the week before.

Emma had hauled Bayley back up for a third time and was now holding her from behind, pinning her arms behind her so that she was powerless to block the chair shot that Elena began to carefully size up, taking a couple of practice swings with the chair. "Elena's going to finish Bayley once and for all here," Otunga said, making his distaste plain.

Having seen a similar spot many times in the past, a large number of the crowd expected Bayley to break free and duck when Elena swung the chair, leaving her to nail Emma with it it instead, which would give the challenger a way back into the match. When that didn't happen and the chair actually did hit Bayley in the head, the fans groaned in real disappointment. Their cry for help to Becky Lynch hadn't worked, and now Bayley was out cold in the middle of the ring. Out of resignation, the crowd now fell almost silent.

"Well, this is over," Ranallo said, deflated. "Emma and her new friends have really done a number on Bayley."

Ronda's music hit, causing the kind of eruption from the fans that could only come from a mixture of total surprise and sheer delight. "Wait!" Ranallo yelled as Ronda marched out onto the stage holding a steel chair. "Ronda Rousey is here!"

Emma was shown with a look of horror on her face, barking orders at Nikki and Sarita to go and deal with Ronda. Nikki was first to obey, rolling out of the ring and running at Ronda, with her partner not far behind. It had only taken a few seconds for all of this to happen. Ronda was halfway down the ramp when Nikki reached her. After kicking her in the stomach, Ronda brought the chair crashing down onto her back, with the crowd roaring their delight at the impact.

"Ronda with a chair to the back of Nikki!" Ranallo called out.

Seeing that Sarita was quickly approaching, Ronda swung the chair as she turned, catching Sarita with a much harder blow to the side of the head than she would have liked. The crowd didn't care about that, greeting the second impact with another roar of delight.

"Down goes Sarita!" Ranallo exclaimed. Elena met a similar fate as she rolled out of the ring, trying to block Ronda's approach. "Down goes Elena!"

Emma had picked up the chair that Elena had used to hit Bayley only moments earlier. After Ronda rolled under the bottom rope, Emma ran at her with her chair held above her head. The plan failed miserably. Seeing her coming, Ronda kicked her in the stomach and then as Emma doubled over in pain, took a baseball style swing at her head with her own chair. Luckily, Emma blocked most of the shot with her hands or the impact could really have been really nasty. Ronda's adrenaline had gotten the better of her, but that didn't matter to the fans. Another roar of delight accompanied the devastating impact.

"Down goes Emma!" Ranallo shouted as Ronda angrily tossed the ruined chair across the ring and then rolled back out under the bottom rope. "Ronda Rousey just knocked out four people with a steel chair! She hit everyone in the ring apart from Bayley!" The crowd were too busy cheering wildly to chant anything as Ronda walked away up the ramp, leaving the destruction she had caused behind her.

It seemed to take a moment for everyone to realise that the match was actually still in progress. Emma and Bayley were now the only two people in the ring, and they were both struggling to get to their feet. Once again Emma picked up Elena's chair, only to repeat her previous mistake by running at Bayley with it held above her head. Bayley had no weapon of her own, but she was still able to counter.

"Bayleycanrana!" Ranallo called out, over another deafening roar from the crowd. This time the challenger was back on her feet almost immediately, poised and ready to strike Emma, who was using the ropes to pull herself back up.

"Oh, Bayley's going to... Yes! Bayley-to-Belly! Bayley hooks the leg! We need a referee!"

"Here he comes!" Otunga called out. "The referee is getting back in the ring!"

Most of the crowd still didn't seem to actually buy the fact that Bayley was going to win, not after the amount of time that Emma had held the title, and not in England, where WWE never booked anything of significance, for some reason. Their disbelief was obvious from the way they joined in with the count and the sheer elation that greeted the three.

"Wow, Ronda," Thea said backstage, with genuine awe in her voice. The crowd continued to go absolutely crazy for Bayley. "I've never heard a crowd like that before. The roof came off the damn place when your music hit. What a moment. Look at them out there. Bayley must be buzzing so much right now."

"Yeah, it went well," Ronda said, not sounding surprised at all.

"It must be such a rush to get a reaction like that?"

"There's nothing else like it," Ronda confirmed with a nod and a smile.

Nikki and Sarita walked through the curtain, still selling the chair shots that they'd taken until they were out of sight of the crowd. "Christ, Ronda," Sarita said irritably, walking over. "You want to swing any harder with that thing?"

"Sorry," Ronda said, surprisingly convincingly. "You came at me a bit quick so I had to react. Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Sarita sighed, although she still didn't look particularly happy about it.

Emma came through the curtain next, with Elena helping her. Thea looked on as Ronda walked over to the now former Divas Champion and put an arm around her. Although she couldn't hear the quiet words that Ronda said to Emma, it was obvious that they were supportive in nature. She was able to lip read Emma when she said, "I will. Thank you."

It was another side of Ronda that Thea hadn't seen before. She had seen a colleague who was hurting both physically and mentally and had wanted to try and help somehow. "What did you say to her?" she asked when Ronda walked back over to her.

"Something she needed to hear," Ronda said evasively. "She'll be back, better than ever."

Meanwhile, Bayley had just walked through the curtain with the title belt that would belong to her for the next seven days, as well as the tag team belt that was hers for a longer period. Ronda and Thea watched as she shared a tight and loving embrace with her girlfriend. Both of them were struggling to hold back tears of joy. Similar scenes were to be expected the next week.

"Nice girls, those two," Ronda opined quietly. "I'm glad Daga's getting a run with the belt. It's overdue." They waited out of the way while the other women congratulated Bayley. Hunter and Stephanie showed up and also passed on their congratulations and praise for an excellent night's work. Emma also received kind words from them. It stood out to Thea that Ronda was most definitely not the centre of attention for once, although Hunter did come over and say a few words about her part in the finish. Even that didn't seem to offend Ronda, who still had a smile on her face. Predicting her mood was next to impossible, or at least it seemed that way to Thea.

"Thank you, Ronda," Bayley said when she eventually walked over. There was technically no reason for Bayley to thank her because she had just been doing her job out there, when all was said and done, but that was the kind of person Bayley was.

"Nothing to thank me for," Ronda said, slapping her on the shoulder. "I'm just glad it went over so well. You deserve it. You'll never forget a moment like that."

"Thank you. That means a lot," Bayley beamed.

"Enjoy your night. I'll see you next week," Ronda smiled back. It would have taken the coldest of hearts no to, with it being so obvious how delighted Bayley was.

"See you next week," Bayley said.

Neither of them could possibly have imagined how differently they would be feeling the next time they saw each other. A lot can happen in a week.


	10. Chapter 10

"The Houses of Parliament next," Seth said, looking at the itinerary that he had put together and saved to his phone for their day of sightseeing around England's capital city. "It's not all that far away from here. We could take a walk down there if you like?"

Ronda took a final photo of Buckingham Palace on her own phone and then put it into her jacket pocket. The picture wasn't anything special, given the fog that was still persistently hanging in the November air. "Well, we've got good weather for it," she griped sarcastically. "Could they make it any colder over here? Jesus Christ."

Seth had to laugh at his wife's discomfort. She was a California girl through and through, there was no doubt about that. At least there wasn't much chance of someone easily recognising her and deciding to come over and bother them, buried as she was beneath so many layers of clothing as well as an Adidas baseball cap. A pair of leather gloves completed the look, making her look more like a polar explorer than a tourist in London. Not overreacting anything like as much and not needing to be quite as weary of being spotted by someone, Seth had just gone for a thick coat and a black Beanie hat. If Adam hadn't been there with his camera, there would have been nothing to distinguish them from regular tourists, not that there were many of them around this morning. Apparently most people had the brains to visit England in the summer, when there was at least an outside chance of some nice weather.

Thea had opted out of joining them when she had seen the weather for herself because she had not been feeling particularly well and had worried that going out in the cold would make things worse. It wasn't a problem as far as she was concerned. After all, filming the documentary didn't require her to be ever present with Ronda as it did Adam. What was important was to film what Ronda was doing, not for Thea to be there to ask her questions all the time. Maggie was also absent from the day trip, having opted to spend her morning visiting the Tate Modern art gallery instead. If nothing else, it at least gave the future viewers of the documentary a chance to see Ronda and Seth spending time together, just the two of them.

"You're not thinking of moving over here then, babe?" Seth asked, still grinning as he took Ronda's hand and started to walk in what he knew was the direction of the Houses of Parliament.

"I like the country and the people," Ronda clarified, mindful of the fact that they were being filmed. No negative sound bytes were going to be found here. "It's just this weather. Can you imagine living somewhere this cold?"

"I don't mind it, to be honest," Seth said.

"Okay, tough guy," Ronda giggled. "Take that coat off, if you don't mind it."

"I said I don't mind it, not that I want to intentionally give myself pneumonia. Although that would mean some more time off, and you would have to stay home and nurse me."

"Yeah, because that would happen," Ronda quipped, looking at him with a raised eyebrow.

Seth just smiled. They walked along in silence for a few moments, simply enjoying each other's company. Their hectic schedules meant that they didn't get to spend the amount of time together that a lot of married couples enjoyed, so it was important to them to make the most of days like this. The next day would be something of a return to normal, with Seth heading up to Scotland to work a WWE house show and Ronda flying back to America to do some promotional work with Oakley, her other sponsors.

"Can we go find somewhere to get coffee and sit in the warm for a bit after we've been here?" Ronda asked him eventually.

"Sure we can, babe. It's a shame Maggie wasn't up for this, isn't it? We've got loads of cool places to see today."

"I think she just wanted to let us have a day together, honestly. You know how thoughtful she is. Plus she's got that art gallery to go to. Can you imagine her trying to trail me around there?"

Seth chuckled again. "Not really your thing is it?"

"Not at all," Ronda said, shaking her head. "I mean, I love looking at Maggie's art, it's really good. But that's different, you know? I wouldn't want to spend time looking at other people's stuff. Talk about boring."

Turning to look back at Adam, or rather at the camera, Seth said, "That's what I've always loved about her. The girl tells it like it is, no bullshit."

Laughing, Ronda stopped walking as she also turned back to face the camera. Adam stopped too and focused on her. "My husband says the most romantic things, doesn't he? He loves me because I don't talk bullshit, not because he thinks I'm hot or anything like that. Such a charmer."

At that moment the sound of jet engines made them all look up instinctively. Not so much because it was an unusual sound - in London it wasn't. What had attracted their attention was that this time the sound was distinctly different somehow. It sounded like the engines were not roaring like they would if they were at full power, yet they were a lot louder than they should have been. The sound seemed to be magnified by the tall buildings surrounding them. They soon saw why. The plane that was making the sound was a lot lower than any of the others, and a lot lower than it should have been. It was way too low. It cruised almost right overhead of the three onlookers, seemingly almost touching the roofs of the buildings on either side of the street.

Seth was the first one to process the fact that the reason the engines were at low power was because the plane, which he had recognised as a Boeing 747, wasn't trying to climb out over the city, it was actually descending. "Holy shit!" he exclaimed. The plane disappeared from view behind the building that they were standing next to. Only seconds later they heard people screaming, quickly followed by a deep boom. "Holy shit!" Seth exclaimed again, even louder. "It fucking went down!"

Feeling Ronda squeezing his hand tightly, he turned to look at her and saw that the colour had drained from her face. "It didn't seem like there was anything wrong with that plane," she said, sounding rather distant. Shock, he realised.

"You're right," Seth said, the realisation hitting him hard. What had just happened looked like it been no accident. There had been no smoke coming from the plane's engines, and there had been no damage to it's exterior. Someone had just crashed a 747 into the middle of London. Judging by the direction it had been heading in, he could make a good guess at the exact location, too. The Houses of Parliament were only a short distance away in that direction, only obscured from sight from where he and his wife were standing by the building in front of them. "Terrorists," he blurted out. "The Houses of Parliament."

"Bastards," Ronda mumbled, her voice cold as ice.

"We better get back to the hotel," Seth said. He took the first step, still holding her hand and trying to lead the way, but she pulled him back.

"No!" Ronda told her husband with a firmness that even he had rarely seen from her. "There are innocent people dying over there. We have to go and help, if we can. I'm not fucking running away from this. That's what those pieces of shit want people to do; run away, be afraid. No! We're going to help."

"They have emergency services..." Seth began to protest, but he didn't get any further because Ronda had already turned and started jogging down the street in the direction that they'd been heading in moments before. Knowing his wife, he knew that he wasn't going to be able to stop her. She was going to try and help the injured, and she was right, he decided. Maybe they could save a life that might otherwise be lost. "Alright, wait up," he called out, setting off after her.

Neither of them had even thought about Adam, who had caught the whole thing on film, and continued to do so as best he could as he tried to keep up with them. Whatever the hell was going on, it was his job to keep filming as much of it as possible. Not just for the documentary now, either, he realised. He might have been the only person who had gotten footage of the plane heading in. That footage would be required by the authorities to assist with the inevitable investigation.

Ronda waited for a moment for Seth to catch up to her after hearing him call out, then they jogged side by side, making their way towards what they were sure was going to be a horrifying scene. The first few panicked people appeared, running the opposite way up the street to get away from the devastation. Some were screaming, some crying, some just fleeing as fast as they could. From around the corner up ahead, another loud chorus of terrified screams went up, followed by an apocalyptic sound that could only have been one thing.

"That had to be a fucking building falling down," Seth said in horror. "Honey, wait. I'm serious now," he said, taking Ronda's arm and forcing her to stop. He looked her right in the eyes to make sure that she was listening to him and paying attention. "We don't know what's around that corner, and I'm not going to see you get hurt. We'll help if we can, but we're going to stay together, and we're not going to get ourselves hurt or killed. If it's too dangerous, we're staying away, okay?"

"Okay," Ronda nodded, squeezing his hand again. She had never seen a look like that in her husband's eyes before. He was absolutely not going to take no for an answer. This time things were going to be done his way because he wanted to be sure of the fact that he could keep her safe. She didn't think she had ever loved him more than she did at that moment. Those thoughts had to be set aside for now. People needed help.

Hand in hand, they walked towards the corner, threading their way through the ever growing tide of panic stricken people who were heading the opposite way, most of them now covered in some kind of thick dust. Neither Seth or Ronda noticed that Adam had caught them up and was continuing to film as best he could. The air was now as thick with the smell of burning jet fuel as it was with the sounds of people screaming, some in fear, some desperate for help. Countless numbers of sirens could be heard now too, coming from all directions as the emergency services began to spring into action. At the corner just up ahead, some people were standing, looking down the street with almost dumbstruck expressions on their faces. "They knocked the whole fucking thing down!" they heard one of them shout incredulously.

When they finally approached the corner, Ronda told herself to prepare for the worst. It was an impossible task. What her mind pictured fell a long way short of what she actually saw when she first set eyes on the destruction. Whoever had been piloting the plane had flown it into the corner of the Houses of Parliament, demolishing a large portion of the building and scattering debris all over the grounds and across the adjacent street as well, which was the street that she and Seth were standing on. Caused largely by the huge amount of jet fuel that the 747 had been carrying, a huge and intense fire raged in most of what was left of the seat of British government. The plane's huge tail fin had broken off and now lay on the ground in front of the building, still upright. It bore the distinctive logo of American Airlines.

That wasn't all, Seth saw. As if all of that wasn't bad enough, the giant clock tower which had been known around the world as Big Ben, one of the things that he'd wanted to see on the sightseeing tour that was now long forgotten about, was almost completely gone. Only the first few stories of its base now remained. The collapse that they had heard had been the rest of the tower toppling over sideways, smashing all across the street and through the buildings on the other side. It was beyond horrifying to even begin to contemplate how many people might have been killed. Neither Seth or Ronda could will themselves to move. The appalling scene in front of them had left them almost paralysed.

"My God," Seth breathed.


	11. Chapter 11

All WWE employees knew that if there was any kind of serious emergency in the city where they happened to be, they were required to return to their hotel immediately so that they could be confirmed as safe and placed under the protection of the company's security staff if necessary. When Chris Jericho and Kevin Owens walked into the hotel's lobby, only two people remained unaccounted for.

Everyone in the lobby was in shock, by now having seen footage of the 747 flying into the Houses of Parliament on TV, followed by Big Ben collapsing shortly afterwards due to the plane's wing impacting it and essentially chopping it down like an enormous tree. People had automatically gathered around in groups of friends, talking in hushed tones, all saying similar things. Wasn't it awful? Were there going to be more attacks? How many people had been killed? How had the world ended up going this crazy?

"It's still not making a call," Maggie said despairingly. No one was able to get their cell phones to work, presumably because the system had been overloaded by frightened people trying to call either loved ones or the emergency services. Maggie had been enjoying her morning at the Tate Modern when security staff had suddenly started evacuating everyone, saying that there was no reason to panic, but there had been a terrorist attack on London. What a contradiction that was, she had thought, before it had occurred to her to ask where exactly the attack had happened. When someone had told her more details, her blood had run cold. More than an hour had passed since then, the passage of time only making her feel worse minute by minute. Getting in contact with either Ronda or Seth had proved to be impossible, and she didn't even have Adam's number saved in her phone, for some stupid reason. "They said they were going to the Houses of Parliament. Oh God, please tell me they're not dead."

Roman Reigns was sitting beside her, in a corner of the lobby. Although he too was anxious for news on the safety of his two friends, he had to try to reassure Maggie, who looked like she was on the verge of having a breakdown. He had only just managed to get her to stop crying. "You said Ronda's phone rang the first time you tried it, before it all shut down," he reminded her gently. "If her phone was on, surely that means she's okay."

"That was an hour ago! If they're okay, where the hell are they? Why haven't they came back here? They know that's what they're supposed to do."

"Maybe they're stuck in traffic or something," Roman suggested. "Not many of us had gone out of the hotel before the attack happened, but those who did? They didn't exactly make it back here quickly. Look, Jericho and Owens only just walked in now."

"How can you be so calm about this?" Maggie almost shrieked at him. "All three of them could be dead. Don't you get that?"

"Three of them?" Roman asked, genuinely confused for a second. Then he realised what she must have been talking about. "Oh, the camera guy was with them."

Maggie was glad that Thea walked back over to them right then; it stopped her from screaming at Roman. Although he hadn't done a particularly good job, she knew that he had been trying to help.

"Hunter's going to address everyone now," Thea croaked out, really struggling with the sore throat that had came along with her nasty cold.

"Alright, listen up everyone," Hunter said loudly, quickly silencing all of his employees who were gathered around. It was at times like this when the responsibility of being Chairman of WWE really weighed on him. It was just human nature for those in the lobby to look to him for answers. He was their superior and that meant that he had answers to things that they did not, or so they thought. The reality was a lot different, of course. Hunter knew no more about what had happened or why than anyone else in the room, and even more worryingly, he didn't know anything about the whereabouts of Seth Rollins or Ronda Rousey either. When everyone was back at the hotel and accounted for (he had to think of it as when, not if), things would start to become a little easier. Right now he had to speak to his people and tell them that they must wait in the hotel until further notice, and he had to tell those who didn't know yet that the head count was still two short of what it should have been. The possibility that Seth and Ronda might have been killed in the attack was a real one, given that Maggie had told him that they had planned to visit the Houses of Parliament, but for now Hunter didn't want to dwell on that possibility. An hour was only an hour, he told himself. They could very well be on their way back right now. If only the stupid phones were working.

"As you've all seen by now," he began, "London has been attacked this morning in a truly horrific way. I'm sure you will all join me in sending your thoughts and prayers to those who have been killed by this senseless act, as well as the families of those people." He let that hang in the air for a moment before moving on. "Right now, there's no way to tell if the attack on the Houses of Parliament is a single attack or if there could be more planned. For that reason, you will all be required to remain in the hotel for the rest of the day. If you want to return to your rooms, feel free to do so. I'm sure you want to try to contact your families and friends to let them know that you're okay. However, I do have to point out that there are still two of us unaccounted for at the moment. Seth and Ronda are still out there somewhere. As the phones are out, we've not been able to reach them. Those who wish to wait in the lobby until they show up safe and sound..."

"No one's going anywhere until we know they're okay," a voice called out from the back of the crowd. It was greeted with loud murmurings of agreement.

"He's right," someone else called out. "We're all a family at times like this. We'll wait here."

Hearing further murmurs of agreement, Hunter felt touched by the moment, wondering if this was how it felt to be a Captain in the army, if that was even the appropriate rank. Two of his people were still out there on the battlefield, so to speak, and their comrades were not willing to leave them behind.

"Hey! Someone turn that fucking TV up!" Dean Ambrose's voice was unmistakable, coming from the back of the crowd. Dean had just happened to glance at one of the two large televisions on the lobby's wall. It was muted, showing news coverage, which was the only option right now. Regular programming had of course been interrupted on all channels to cover a national disaster of this magnitude.

Everyone turned to look at what had attracted Dean's attention, even Hunter, who didn't even consider the interruption to his speech. A staff member obeyed Dean's request and turned up the volume on the TV. A caption in the top left corner read, 'Earlier today.' It could not have shot been much earlier, as it showed the aftermath of the attack. The wreckage of what had once been Elizabeth Tower - commonly known as Big Ben - lay across a street. It looked like it was several metres deep. Remains of several cars could be seen, crushed almost beyond recognition by pieces of the falling structure. Dead bodies were also apparent, lying in the street and on the adjacent grassy area, blurred out in advance by the TV editors to protect their viewers from the graphic nature of their injuries. What had attracted Dean's attention, and now attracted everyone else's in the WWE party too, was the reason that this particular clip was being repeated multiple times.

A small group of injured survivors were staggering across the grass, away from the remains of the Houses of Parliament. Some of them were being helped to walk by firemen, others by members of the public who had put bravery ahead of the desire for self preservation and gone into the disaster zone to help others. Although they had somehow survived the impact and the ensuing fireball from the plane's jet fuel igniting, these particular victims all appeared to have hideous burns on their faces and especially their hands, obviously from trying to protect themselves as best they could. Their expensive business suits were now reduced to tattered, singed rags. The camera had zoomed in for a close-up on a youngish man who was being assisted by a very familiar looking blonde woman. Turning up the sound didn't actually help matters because the anchors were talking about who might be to blame for the attack rather than what was currently being shown on the screen, but one of the items on the scrolling Breaking News ticker at the bottom of the screen read:  _Hollywood star Ronda Rousey and her husband seen offering assistance to walking wounded_.

Seth could be seen in the background of one of the shots, helping another similarly injured man towards an area where a vast number of ambulances were parked. Paramedics had quickly set up some kind of makeshift treatment centre on the grass. It wasn't fair at all for Ronda to get more recognition for her actions than Seth when they were both helping the injured, but such was the nature of fame, and such was the nature of the media. If Seth had been there without his wife then the news would have been about WWE wrestler Seth Rollins helping the injured. The fact was that a lot of people knew Ronda for reasons other than wrestling, so the public recognition was going to default to her.

"I told you they'd be fine," Roman said, smiling at Maggie, filled with pride at the fact that his friends had chosen to help the injured instead of running away from the scene. Everyone in the lobby had started talking all at once about what they could see on the screen as the short piece of footage replayed once more. "That's real bravery right there."

"They're brave people," Maggie choked out, tearing up again. "I still just want them to come back though, so I know they're okay."

Another hour and a half went by before that happened. By that time, safe in the knowledge that Seth and Ronda hadn't been hurt in the attack, a lot of the WWE party had gone up to their rooms to try and get in contact with their families or friends. Hunter had remained in the lobby, as had Maggie, Roman, Dean, Nikki Bella and Sarita Lopez. Maggie had told Thea quite firmly that she needed to head back to bed because she looked like death - a term which had felt incredibly inappropriate as soon as she had said it. Aside from the Chairman, the small group consisted of Seth and Ronda's closest friends in the locker room. Doing what they could, the hotel's staff had kept them supplied with coffee and had even allowed them to take turns using one of the phones at the reception desk so that they too could get in touch with people back home. One positive for Hunter was that Stephanie had not joined him on this trip, so she was able to co-ordinate things in the office as they tried to respond to the day's events.

Hunter had stepped out into the street for a moment to get some fresh air, trying once again try to make a call with his cell phone, predictably to no avail. Sighing and shaking his head in frustration, he turned to head back into the lobby. That was when he saw Seth and Ronda walking up the street towards him, hand in hand. Judging by their vacant expressions, they both looked like they were in shock, which was no surprise to him at all. They were also covered from head to toe in dust, and their clothes were marked with various other stains too, including blood on the front of Ronda's coat, Hunter saw. Adam was there too, walking just behind them, carrying his camera by his side. "Jesus, guys," WWE's Chairman exclaimed, hurrying towards them. "Are you alright?"

"We're okay, Hunter," Seth said. "We're covered in this stuff, but we're not hurt."

Hunter embraced him, not caring at all that his suit jacket probably got ruined in the process. Such things simply didn't matter sometimes. Then he turned to Ronda. "Are you okay, Ronda?"

She looked up at him and he saw not just shock in her eyes, but also something else. Sorrow maybe? Whatever it was, seeing it surprised him for some reason. "What the hell is wrong with the world, Hunter? How can people do things like this to each other? So many innocent people killed, and for what?"

"You're right, and I don't know why they do it," Hunter said as he hugged her, hiding his surprise from her. What she had said made sense to him of course, especially after the horrors that she must have seen. What surprised him was just that it wasn't the kind of thing he would have expected Ronda to say. Caring much about other people wasn't something that he associated with her. Ronda was usually Ronda's first priority. It wasn't exactly a rare personality trait in wrestling.

"Is everyone else okay?" Seth asked next. "Maggie? Roman? Dean?"

"Everyone's fine," Hunter assured them. "You're the last people to come back. Some of the guys are waiting in the lobby for you. Why don't we go in, then you can go get yourselves in a shower?"

Hunter exchanged a few words with Adam while they followed him into the hotel, where they were mobbed by those who had been waiting for them. Hugs and greetings began to be exchanged all round. No one was paying any attention to Adam, so Maggie went to him first. She could hardly have fought her way through the small crowd to get at either Seth or Ronda anyway. "I was so worried about you guys," she told him. "I thought you were dead when you didn't come back right away."

Adam kissed her softly on the forehead. "They wanted to help people. I couldn't leave them, I had to film it. Some of the things we saw, Maggie. Horrific. I don't even want to try and describe it to you. People do such vile things to each other."

"They'll get theirs," she said firmly, meaning the terrorists. "They'll be hunted down for this, and so they should be. Right now though, I'm just glad that you guys are okay. That's all that matters to me."

Ronda was first to break free of the welcoming party, even now not keen on being swamped with hugs. More than that, she wanted to see her best friend. "Maggie, are you okay?"

Maggie's eyes widened in horror when she saw the blood on the front of Ronda's coat. "Am  _I_  okay? You're covered in blood!"

"Huh?" Ronda looked down at herself. "Oh, that's not mine," she said faintly. "I'm not hurt. Just need to get cleaned up. I was worried about you."

Without saying anything more, they embraced each other, remaining like it for almost a minute. Maggie could tell than her friend needed it, even if she would never have said so herself. As she often did, Ronda was putting a front on her real feelings. It was a habit that did her more harm than good.

Seth was next to come over. "I'm so proud of you guys," Maggie told him as they hugged. "You're both so brave. We saw you on the news, helping those poor people with the burns."

"Awful," was all Seth could say about that, shaking his head. Some of the sights, sounds and even smells that he had experienced in the past couple of hours would be tough, if not impossible to erase from his memory for a long time to come, if he could ever do so at all.

"Thea was going to wait too," Maggie told them. "But that flu she's got was really kicking her ass, so I talked her into going back to bed after we saw you on the news."

Hunter took charge again, seeing that both Seth and Ronda needed not just a shower, but also some time to spend in the privacy of their room so that they could try and help each other come to terms with what they had been through. WWE would offer to arrange counselling for them if they wanted it, he decided. One thing he took great pride in was taking excellent care of his people, both physically and mentally. It was an area that the wrestling business had been lacking in for almost its entire existence, but Hunter and Stephanie were doing their best to change that. "Guys, why don't we let them get upstairs and get themselves cleaned up?" Looking at Seth, he added, "I can send a doctor up to check you out if you need it?"

"No, thank you," Seth said, waving him off. "Honestly, we're fine. A shower is a good idea though." Taking Ronda's hand, he began to lead her towards the elevators. "Come on babe, let's get all this crap off us."

"I'll come up and check on you later," Hunter said, again wanting to do everything he could for his employees. That was when he would discuss the offer of counselling with them. Before that, his next priority was to contact WWE's offices and get someone to put an announcement on the website that all WWE personnel who were in London were accounted for and unharmed.

Maggie realised that Adam was about to head up to his room, and unlike Seth and Ronda, he would be doing so alone. That wasn't right, not after what he had been through. Anyone would need company, would need someone to talk to, after something like that. "Adam, why don't you use the shower in my room? I don't want you to be on your own, you know, after this morning."

"Thank you," he replied gratefully, appreciating the offer for exactly what it was.

* * *

Taking a shower and drinking a cup of strong black coffee had helped both Seth and Ronda to feel somewhat more human again. There hadn't been much conversation between them, but they had both appreciated the fact that the other was there. Somehow having a loved one with you just made things feel better on some base level. After dressing in some casual clothes, they had settled down together on the bed, just lying there holding each other and feeling thankful that they could do so. Seeing the rather vacant look in her husband's eyes, Ronda knew that he was going through the same thing she was, reliving the morning over and over again in his mind.

Reflecting on what had happened earlier in the day had also made her reflect on the bigger picture as far as her life was concerned. So many thoughts were rattling around in her head, but there were two that she couldn't get away from: Why did people do such awful things to each other? And what had she done with her life since she had been blessed with fame and fortune that had actually made a difference to anyone apart from herself and her immediate family and friends?

The answer to the first question was beyond her, but she could try to answer the second. In fact, it was quite easy to do so. Nothing, that was the answer. Sure, she went to the Make-A-Wish events that WWE booked for her, but that was all. And even that was most often because it was required of her rather than because she actually wanted to. That attitude was seriously wrong, she realised now. Things that seemed small and insignificant to her, such as spending a couple of hours of her time talking to kids at a hospital somewhere, for example, could mean the world to those people - people much like those she had helped earlier in the morning. They were people who would be scarred physically and mentally for the rest of their lives, even though they had done nothing to deserve it. That was totally wrong. People like that needed help, but what help could a part time wrestler and part time actress realistically give to them? What could Ronda Rousey actually do that would make a difference? Something that her beloved father had once told her came to mind. "It's your job to make sure you leave the world a better place than you found it."

Words had never rang truer than that. But how could she do it? Taking the fight to the terrorists certainly wasn't an option. That was primarily the job of politicians, for what use they actually were. One thing Ronda would never be was a politician; her personality could not have been less suited to that line of work, even she knew that. So if she couldn't take on the terrorists, what could she do? Help the victims somehow, that seemed to be the only thing that made sense.

"Honey," she said softly. "I've been thinking. We've both said today that we hate how much evil there is in the world. I want to do some good. When that plane crashed today, all I wanted to do was help people. I want to keep on helping people. What good is being famous if all you do is make money from it? We've already got plenty of money. We have a nice house, nice cars, nice clothes, all that shit, so why do we need more money? It's not even important."

"What are you saying, babe?" Seth asked, tenderly brushing a strand of hair away from her face.

"I'm saying that I want to help people. I'm not sure exactly how I can do it though. What I was thinking about was all the people that were hurt today, who is going to be there for them? Sure, they have family and friends, but that's not always enough, is it? Look at what I had to go through with my therapy. I had you, I had Maggie, but I still needed a doctor to help me get through it."

"Are you talking about starting a charity?" Seth asked, considering the idea for himself and liking it.

Nodding thoughtfully, Ronda said, "Maybe a charity, yeah. There must be other charities out there that help people who've been victims of something like this, but that doesn't mean we couldn't start one."

"You know what really struck me today?" Seth asked.

"What, honey?"

"The emergency services, particularly the firemen. We both saw them in action today. It got me thinking that they're such brave people, you know? I have no idea how many firemen get hurt or killed every year in America. I'd make a bet that it's a lot though, and what recognition do you ever hear them get? Hardly any. That's not right."

Ronda pictured some of the firemen that she had seen earlier, trying desperately to tackle the inferno at the Houses of Parliament. It was a job that she wouldn't have been brave enough to do, that was for sure. Seth was right when he pointed out that they got no recognition for it, and it wouldn't have surprised her if their pay wasn't even anything special. "You're right," she told her husband. "They really are underappreciated for what they do. Don't forget the families too; families who lose a husband or a wife, maybe even a son or daughter because they die trying fight a fire. Who's there to help those people?"

"There probably are charities for that already," Seth said. "I mean, surely there must be, but if you wanted to set one up I'm sure we could get a lot of publicity behind it and that would bring in a lot of support and a lot of money. That's the way things are, isn't it?"

"That's what I'm talking about," Ronda said, really warming to the idea now. A charity to support injured firefighters and their families was an excellent idea. If she did launch it, she was sure it was a cause that WWE would get behind too. Pushing charities was something that they had experience with. Hunter and Stephanie even had a charity of their own, so it would be easy enough to hit them up for advise on how to get the ball rolling. The plan was already starting to come together. "I want to use my popularity to do some good. I want to put my name to use to so some real good in the world. My dad told me once that it's our job to leave the world a better place than we find it. If I can help people who need and deserve that help, that's leaving the world a better place than I find it, right?"

"Definitely," Seth smiled. "I think it's a fantastic idea. I'm really proud of you, you know that? I'm a lucky guy."

Ronda leaned forward slightly and kissed him. "No, I'm the lucky one. A woman couldn't hope for a better husband, putting up with all the shit I've dragged you through over the years. I know I'm a lot of hard work, but here we are, still together and happy. A lot of guys wouldn't have stuck with me. I love you so much."

"Well there have been times I've thought twice about it," Seth teased.

"Asshole," Ronda grinned, punching him on the shoulder. To most people the word was an insult, but for a long time it had been an affectionate name that she had used for Seth, which was why he laughed as he rubbed his shoulder. Simultaneously it dawned on both of them that laughter didn't sound or feel right, not on this day. Hundreds of people had to have been killed, leaving thousands more to suffer the loss of a family member or friend. Then there was the fact that if they had made their way towards the House of Commons two minutes earlier than they had, they would probably have been among the victims rather than those who were trying to help. It was a very sobering thought indeed, and it brought tears to Ronda's eyes.

Seeing her eyes fill up and correctly guessing what she was thinking, Seth pulled her closer and held her. "I know, babe. I know. We're okay, though. We're both still here."

"But so many others..." she managed to say, then the tears really came. It was the first time she had cried about the day's events, and the emotional release was long overdue. Seth wasn't sure if it was the horrific nature of what he had witnessed or if it was the fact that his wife was sobbing in his arms that made his own eyes fill up. Sucking it up as best he could, he managed to hold it in, believing that a man shouldn't cry in front of his wife.

It took a minute or so for Ronda to stop crying, drawing as much strength from her husband as she could. As always, she thought, he was the strong one in their relationship, he was the rock that she needed to keep her from giving in to her many weaknesses, and he never failed to be there for her when she needed him. A woman couldn't ask for more from her husband. She was about to tell him again exactly how much she appreciated him, but someone knocked loudly on their door, startling them.

"That'll be Hunter," Seth said. "We need to let him in, so do you want to go wash up?"

"Yeah," Ronda said, wiping her eyes as she got up and hurried towards the bathroom.

Seth followed her across the room - the bathroom door was near to the room's main door - and waited until she was inside before he opened the door to the boss, who had now discarded his dust-coated suit jacket. "Hunter, hi. Come in."

"How are you both?" Hunter asked with a tight smile as he walked into the room.

Seth closed the door and gestured for Hunter to take a seat in the room's one comfortable chair, which was near the window. "It hasn't really hit us yet, I don't think. I just keep seeing the same things over and over in my head. Some of the things we saw today. People burnt, people... Well, you don't need me to describe it all to you."

Hunter studied his protege carefully as he sat down on the edge of the bed. His skin looked pale and his eyes had something of a vacant look to them. Whether Seth knew it or not, shock was setting in. Coming up to the room to speak to him and let him know that both he and WWE as whole were there for him if he needed them had definitely been the right thing to do. Putting a brave face on things as awful as this wasn't the way to deal with them. "I wanted to come up and let you know that we're here to help you both in any way we can," Hunter began. "You've been through a traumatic experience today, one that's going to live with you for a long time. What I'd like to do is arrange for you to speak with someone about it."

"Counselling you mean?" Seth asked vaguely.

"I know you might not think it's something you need to..."

"It's okay," Seth cut him off, "I don't need you to sell it to me. I think it's a good idea. You know how much going to see someone helped Ronda to deal with her issues, that's all the convincing I need."

Hunter nodded, respecting the wisdom and maturity that Seth had just shown. Those were qualities that the younger man hadn't always possessed, as evidenced by several faux pas earlier in his career, but then what young, successful wrestler had managed to avoid things they later regretted? Not Hunter in his own younger days, that was for sure, he had to admit to himself. "I'll have someone get that set up for you then. Sleep on it tonight and see how you feel tomorrow. We've got a schedule to keep to with the event in Scotland, but if you need some time off, I can take care of that for you too."

"Thanks, I appreciate that," Seth said. "I think I'd rather just keep working to be honest."

The bathroom door opened and Ronda walked out, looking fresher than she had when she'd gone in there. "Hey, Hunter," she smiled weakly at the boss.

"Ronda, how are you feeling?" Hunter asked, standing up to greet her out of politeness.

"I'm okay," she said, sounding a little unsure if it was actually true or not. She walked over to Hunter and they shared a brief hug, as was their usual custom. When they parted, Hunter sat back down and Ronda walked over to sit on the bed beside Seth. It didn't escape Hunter's attention that she took his hand and held it her lap, a gesture that he wouldn't ordinarily have expected to see from her.

"Hunter was just saying that he can arrange for some counselling for us," Seth told her. "I said I thought it was a good idea. What do you think?"

"Yeah," Ronda nodded. "We should probably do that. Thank you, Hunter. There's actually a couple of other things I want to ask you about."

"Sure," Hunter smiled, encouraging her to go on.

"We were talking just before you got here about an idea we had. What we'd like to do is start up a charity, I thought maybe we could call it the Rousey Foundation. What it would be is a charity to help injured firemen and the families of firemen who are killed on the job. It just hit us both today that they are such brave and underappreciated people who do an amazing job. We think it's time someone did something to get them more respect, more recognition and more help when it's their turn to need it."

"I think that's a wonderful idea," Hunter said, already turning his mind to what he might be able to do to help, before he was asked.

"Is there anything you can do to help out?" Ronda asked next, as he had predicted. "You and Steph launched your own charity, so we thought you were the best person to ask."

"You might have to give me a couple of days, what with everything that's happened today, but I can make some calls and put you in touch with some people who can help you get it off the ground. Steph's probably better placed to help you with this than I am, but I know she'll love the idea and she'll be more than happy to back you on it. It'll take some investment of time and money from the two of you to make a success; you've figured that out for yourselves, of course. It's definitely a good cause, so I'll make sure WWE backs you as much as we can once you're up and running. We can run some commercials on our shows, we could even have a Rousey Foundation themed Smackdown one night after you've launched it. Presumably you're planning on doing things like visiting injured firemen in hospital? I could have some of the other guys come do that with you. They're just some of the first ideas that come to mind."

"We'd only really just thought of the basics of the idea a few minutes ago," Seth admitted. "We are serious about it, though. We'll put some more thought into it and then we'll speak to your people if you can get us the details. I'd really appreciate that."

"We both would," Ronda smiled. In the bathroom she had found herself looking into the mirror, taking a long hard look at herself as the expression went. Starting a charity wasn't the only way she could start to help others out, she could do it at WWE as well. Setting aside the aggression, some of what Paige had said in her interview with Thea had been correct, she realised now. Ronda Rousey was the biggest name in women's wrestling, that was a fact of life. She was already at the top of the mountain. Rather than trying to fight other people off so that she could stay up there alone, what she ought to be doing was helping others on their own journey to the top. It didn't even matter if she particularly liked them personally, she had a responsibility as the big name to put others over and make them look good instead of trying to hog the limelight herself, which was what she had been doing, whether she had looked at it that way at the time or not.

"I want to start giving back, Hunter," she announced, knowing that what she was about to say would surprise the boss, and probably her husband also. "That's what I've realised today. If there's one good thing to come out of this awful tragedy it's that I realised fame shouldn't be something to take for granted or to use for your own personal gains, it's something that you should use to benefit those who aren't as lucky as you are. Because when it's all said and done, that's all I am, an ordinary girl who got lucky. Really lucky. I want you to use me to put some of the other guys over from now on, Hunter. You know, like you wanted me to do with Paige that time for example. I shouldn't have turned that down."

Seth felt great pride at what he had just heard, giving his wife's hand a reassuring squeeze to let her know.

"And I shouldn't have allowed you to turn it down," Hunter said frankly, with a slight raise of his eyebrows and another tight smile. "I have to admit I've been too lenient with you at times, Ronda, largely because you and I get on well personally. It shouldn't be like that. I'm glad to hear you say that you're happy to put over some of the other talent because we have some great prospects; people like Bayley, Daga, not to mention the girls on NXT. I'm not saying we're going to suddenly make you a jobber of course, that will never happen."

"No, I understand," Ronda assured him.

"Alright guys," Hunter said, standing back up. "I'm going to leave you be. If you need anything, anything at all, you can call me or come find me. Take care of each other, okay?"

"We will," Seth said, getting to his feet and shaking Hunter's hand. "Thanks for coming up."

"Thanks for offering to help too," Ronda said, also rising so that she could walk him to the door. "We both really appreciate it."

They exchanged goodbyes at the door and with that Hunter was gone.

"I could use a drink," Ronda said as she walked back over to the bed and allowed herself to collapse onto it. "Actually I could use a lot of fucking drink."

Seth let out a long, heavy sigh. "I think that's an excellent idea."


	12. Chapter 12

All commercial flights were grounded in British airspace because it had not yet been established exactly how the disaster of the previous day had been able to happen. Thanks to extra security measures introduced after previous terrorist attacks, hijacking a plane was thought to be impossible in this day and age. Early indications were that the terrorists had found a way around that problem by either having their people train and qualify as pilots, or by recruiting people who were already pilots. It was a terrifying prospect for the world of aviation, not to mention the general public of western countries as a whole.

For Hunter and WWE however, the suspension of air travel had provided a much more immediate problem: How were they going to get from London to Edinburgh, Scotland in time for that night's house show? In the tradition of "the show must go on," every effort had to be made to ensure that the event did in fact go ahead. Bringing in buses had been the only viable option for transport, but the journey promised to be a very long and tedious one. It would have taken at least eight hours on a good day, and with the significant increase in traffic thanks to the disruption, this was definitely not going to be a good day. To try and give them the best possible chance of making it to the arena in Scotland in reasonable time to prepare for the show, Hunter had ordered that the buses were to leave the hotel at five AM. Early alarm calls were hardly uncommon in the wrestling business, but they were nonetheless unwelcome. The events of the previous day, which had of course shocked everyone, combined with the early start, meant that there wasn't much conversation between the Superstars as they were counted onto the two buses.

Unable to fly back to America to fulfill her commitments, Ronda was now also traveling with the rest of the WWE party. Being able to stay with Seth was something that she was grateful for. Having to leave him so soon after what they had been through less than twenty four hours earlier really would have been hard for both of them. Having each other's support was the only thing that was really keeping them going after the horrors they had witnessed at the Houses of Parliament. First to get onto their particular bus, the two of them took seats near the back and tried to get as comfortable as possible.

"You look worse than I feel," Ronda mumbled to Thea a minute or so later when she walked up and took the seat right across the aisle from her. It was the first time they had seen each other since the attack.

"I feel awful, but a bit better than yesterday," Thea groaned back. "At least the sore throat has gone. I had to go back to bed after we saw you on the news yesterday morning, and I ended up sleeping for like twelve hours. It was a good job Adam sent a text to tell me that we had to be out early. So, uh, how are you?" Asking that particular question felt strange given what Ronda and Seth must have gone through, but it was too early in the morning to think of a better way of putting it.

"Never been better," Seth mumbled. He already had his Beanie hat pulled down over his eyes in the hope that it might make sleep come a little easier for him, not that sleep could possibly come easily when he was sandwiched into a seat on a bus.

"Didn't sleep well," Ronda said, which was a major understatement. Every time she closed her eyes, she was confronted by the awful scenes she had witnessed the day before. Seeing people, both living and dead, with such hideous burns or injuries would live long in anyone's memory. At least Hunter had already promised to arrange counselling for her and Seth. She had a feeling that the help would be much needed, doubting that the full weight of what she had been through had hit her yet. Things like that could be a gradual and very unpleasant process, she had learned that when she had fallen from a horse and broken her neck many years before. Night terrors could be nasty, persistent things.

"I'm going to guess you don't want to talk about what happened or what you saw," Thea said gently.

"You guess right," Ronda replied. "No one should have to see things like that, and I'm certainly not going to sit here describing them to a documentary that's supposed to be about wrestling."

Although she had no intention of pressing the point, Thea thought that was a naive thing to say. If Ronda thought this documentary was going to consistent mainly of wrestling related content after the footage Adam had shot in the aftermath of the disaster, she had another thing coming. There was no way that WWE were just going to edit out two of their stars helping the injured and pretend that it hadn't happened. Cynical though it undoubtedly was, the potential of Ronda Rousey: Revolutionary to draw ratings had gone through the roof. Business was business, and that kind of opportunity could not be passed up. It was hardly as if no one else would make documentaries about what had happened, and they would want Ronda's input, so WWE might as well get themselves ahead of the game. Thea expected to be given new instructions by Hunter or Stephanie in the near future, as far as that was concerned.

People had been filing onto the buses while they had been talking, including Maggie and Adam, who had sat together a bit further forward. "They're getting along well," Thea said, managing a grin as she nodded towards the front of the bus.

Ronda knew who she meant, and gave a thin smile of her own. "Good for them. I'm sure Adam needed to be with someone last night; he was there with us, after all. Maggie will have taken care of him, she's good at that kind of thing."

Roman Reigns had been walking up the aisle towards the back of the bus, looking for somewhere to spend the impending miserable journey. Seeing the empty seat next to Thea, and more importantly the fact that she was sitting opposite his two friends, he figured that spot was the one he wanted. "Room for a little one?" he smiled at Thea.

"Sure," she replied, shifting over to the seat next to the window. Part of Ronda was glad about that, knowing that there might have been little chance to get any sleep with Thea sitting next to her. It was understandable that she felt the need to ask a lot of questions, it was her job when all was said and done, but Ronda just didn't need it this morning.

Roman sat down and tried to fit his huge frame into the available space as best he could, looking over at Ronda and Seth with some concern as he did so. "How are you guys? I was going to come down to your room last night, but I decided it was probably best to leave you alone, you know?"

"Don't think it's really sunk in yet," Seth mumbled, the Beanie remaining in place over his eyes. "We've just got to get on with it, I guess. Hunter offered us time off. Honestly, I think that would probably make things worse though."

"You're probably right," Roman said thoughtfully, imagining what it would be like for Seth or Ronda to sit at home with nothing to do other than think about whatever awful sights they had seen at the Houses of Parliament. "How about you, Ronda? You okay?"

"About as okay as I can be," Ronda sighed. "He's right, it's not really sunk in yet. We're going to have some counselling sessions when we get back home, so hopefully that helps us deal with the worst of it." She was about to go on to tell him about the idea for The Rousey Foundation, but they were approached by Bayley and Elena D'Agostino, who selected the two empty seats behind Seth and Ronda.

"Hi," Elena said tiredly to the two people in front of her. "How are you?"

"We saw you on the news," Bayley added. "What you did was really courageous."

Seth and Ronda went through a similar conversation to that which they had just had with Roman, telling them that they were okay and that they were going to attend counselling when they returned to America.

"Did you know the press and TV news people were at the hotel last night, trying to get to speak to you?" Bayley said to Ronda. "You ended up being one of the stories of the day."

Ronda did know. Hunter had approached her in the hotel's lobby just before they had walked out to board the buses and told her about it. He had informed her that he had given a statement on behalf of WWE and all its employees, and he wanted that to be their final say on the matter. Having WWE Superstars making controversial political statements on TV definitely wasn't the kind of thing that he wanted to deal with. Mindful of her commitment to further improve the way she acted at work, Ronda had agreed that she would say that she had no further comment to make whenever she happened to be stopped by anyone from the media, which was inevitable sooner or later. "Yeah, Hunter told me," she said. "He doesn't want me to say anything more about it, and that's fine with me. We didn't go help those people to get attention for ourselves, we did it because it was the right thing to do. And it's not fair if they're only talking about me, either. Both of us were there, and we both helped people."

"Don't worry about it, babe," Seth mumbled. "Like you said, we didn't do it for attention. I don't care what they say or whether or not I get mentioned. It's not important." The fully loaded bus had pulled into traffic while he was speaking. "I'm going to try and get some sleep," he announced, in the vain hope that everyone else would do the same and there might actually be some peace and quiet.

"The show is going to be strange tonight," Elena said, immediately blowing his hopes out of the water. "I wonder what Hunter's going to do? We can't act like nothing happened."

"No, there will have to be a minute's silence or something to start the show," Roman said.

An idea occurred to Ronda as she listened to that exchange. Her intention was to speak to Paige at the earliest opportunity about setting their differences aside, after accepting the fact that she had been in the wrong when refusing to lose to her at a creative meeting a few months earlier. Verbal shots had been fired in both directions since, some of them quite personal. It was time that kind of thing stopped, Ronda had decided, and what better way that to do something for the English Diva in the wake of the disaster that had been inflicted on her country? Although she didn't know Paige well enough to judge how patriotic she was, she knew that if the situation was reversed, had the White House been attacked, for example, she would feel very upset and angry about it. Turning so that she could look at Bayley and Elena through the gap between her seat and Seth's, Ronda said, "We should do something for Paige, guys. I know putting her over in a match isn't much, but at least it's a nice gesture."

"We were thinking the same," Bayley nodded. "I was going to mention it to you, actually. I'm sure Hunter has thought about it, but we should talk to him about it when we get there."

"The idea we had was a six woman tag match," Elena joined in. "Paige is obviously going to be face, so we thought it could be her, you Ronda, and Bayley, against me, Sarita and Nikki."

After considering that for a moment, Ronda said, "Yeah, that makes sense. I was trying to come up with a way for me to put her over, but your idea makes more sense for tonight. Face on face isn't the kind of thing we want to go for."

"I'll be happy to get the pin, if that's what you want?" Elena said. As was sometimes the case, her choice of words was awkward in her second language. Everyone knew that she was offering to be the one to have her shoulders counted down to end the match.

"Okay, we'll pitch it to Hunter first chance we get," Ronda decided, not even thinking about the fact that the other two had automatically deferred to her to get the boss on side. Everyone was just used to that being the way things were.

Sharp as ever, Thea had noticed exactly that as she sat and listened to the conversation, out of sight and out of mind, sitting the other side of Roman. Regardless of what Ronda said or wanted, she thought, there was an established pecking order in the Divas roster, with the big star and the big ego at the top of it. Good intentions or not, that kind of thing was hard to change.

For his part, Seth had missed almost the entire exchange. Despite the chatter going on all around him, he had managed to fall sound asleep.

* * *

Eleven hours later, the coach pulled into its designated parking place at the arena in Edinburgh. On board, Ronda nudged Seth awake. "We're here, honey. That has to have been the worst journey ever undertaken by anyone, anywhere in the world, ever," she complained to him as he stretched, trying to wake himself up.

"I agree," he yawned.

"What do you mean, you agree?" she demanded. "You slept the whole time. You only woke up when we stopped for that coffee and piss break."

"And what a cup of coffee and piss it was," Seth quipped, making light of her unfortunate phrasing.

Roman laughed at the joke as he stood up and tried to stretch, not that he had much room to do so. "You were the lucky one," he told Seth. Gesturing to Ronda and the two women sitting behind her, he added, "Word to the wise: Never travel with these three sitting together again. At least not without a good pair of earplugs."

Grinning, Seth said, "Earplugs are uncomfortable. We'll just bring duct tape next time." Laughing tiredly, the two men exchanged a fist bump, ignoring Ronda's theatrical scowl.

"I'd like to see you try it," Elena said, starting to follow Bayley down the aisle to get off the bus.

"Daga, you're the worst one of all," Roman needled her as he followed behind them. "I think you must breathe through your ears or something. You definitely never stop talking long enough to do it any other way."

"Maybe you should have cut one of your promos on us," Bayley suggested. "That would have soon put us all to sleep."

Everyone in their small group responded with an over the top "Ohhhhh!" and then burst out laughing.

"That was brutal," Ronda giggled, waiting for Thea to follow behind Roman. "Jesus, Thea. You still look ill, girl."

"I did get some sleep, but I'm struggling," Thea admitted with heavy understatement. "We should do some filming tonight, but I really don't think I can face it. I need to crawl into bed as soon as I can and try and sleep through this damned thing. I'll have Adam film you, though, we can do that at least."

"Okay, I guess we've got to get back to it," Ronda agreed somewhat reluctantly. It had been a long day to say the least and her nerves were frayed. That's what you get for agreeing to full access twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, she scolded herself silently. Why had it seemed like a good idea at the time?

They filed off the bus, joining the crowd of people from the other bus, which had arrived just ahead of theirs. Looking around, Ronda saw that everyone looked as tired, uncomfortable and irritable as she felt. It was the part of being a wrestler that people who didn't do the job rarely considered, she thought, glad that she no longer had to work the full schedule that most of the others did.

Closer to the arena's entrance, she could see a group of people who could be nothing other than the media. They had cameras, microphones and notepads at the ready. She didn't notice that Hunter was walking up to her until he spoke, addressing both her and Seth. "They'll be here hoping to speak to the two of you. I'd appreciate it if you didn't give them any comments. As I said before, we've released a statement on behalf of WWE and all our employees. I'd like to avoid the controversy we'd get if someone said the wrong thing."

Ronda knew that he meant her. Seth was too smart not to keep his mouth shut when asked, and even if he did say something, he would manage to avoid kicking up a shit storm with some comment that would anger one group of people or another. That was the kind of thing that she often did, even when she had no intention of doing so.

"No problem," Ronda told the boss. "I'll say nothing to them. I'd like to talk to you about an idea for tonight's show when we're set up inside."

"Alright," Hunter agreed, "But it's going to be manic trying to get organised in time. The show starts in a couple of hours."

"Hey, at least we got here in time," Seth said. "I had my doubts."

"Yeah, me too," Hunter said frankly, then headed off to speak to someone else.

Ronda, Seth and Thea regrouped with Maggie and Adam, chatting about the journey as they made their way towards the entrance. Most of Ronda's attention was on the media group, who started calling out her name and shouting questions when they saw her approaching. There would have been times in the past when she would have gone ahead and ignored Hunter's request, and told them exactly what she truly thought about the events in London and the people responsible for it, but not this time, she decided. What good would it have done to express to Hunter that she had a desire to improve the way she acted at work, only to go and do something like that less than twenty four hours later? No, she had to tow the party line as the boss had requested. She knew that Seth must have been tempted to caution her against going off message, but he said nothing as they walked side by side up to the waiting reporters.

It was hard to make out any of the individual questions that were being fired her way because the journalists were all shouting at the same time, not that it mattered when she wasn't going to be answering any of them. Holding a hand up soon silenced the crowd. "WWE have issued a statement on behalf of their employees regarding yesterday's horrific attack in London. Neither myself or my husband have any further comments to add to that statement. Thank you."

Another volley of shouted questions came her way, but she and Seth had already turned and quickly walked into the building. "Well played, babe," Seth smiled.

"You know me," Ronda grinned back. "Never one to cause controversy."

"Yeah, right."

* * *

After getting the green light from Hunter for the idea for the six woman tag team match, for which she had rightly credited Elena and Bayley, Ronda had asked if she could be the one to tell Paige about it. The request had surprised Hunter, but in a good way, and he had agreed without hesitation, adding only one further instruction for her: The encounter had to be filmed for the documentary.

When Ronda had left his office, Hunter had sent a runner to bring Thea Trinidad to see him. One of the many things that had been on his mind during the lengthy journey up from London had been the documentary about Ronda. Considering what had happened the day before and the footage that Adam had gotten of it, it seemed obvious that the entire concept of the show had to change now. Ronda's everyday life was now not going to be the primary focus. How could it be? What the show had to be about now was the disaster and how Ronda had decided to use what she had been through to change herself for the better. Part of that was starting up her own charity, with help from WWE, which also brought with it the added bonus of making the company look good.

"You wanted to see me, sir?" Thea asked as she tapped lightly on the office's open door.

"Call me Hunter," he replied pleasantly, gesturing for her to enter the room.

"Okay, Hunter. What can I do for you?" She figured she already knew the answer, but it was polite to act as if she didn't.

"I just wanted to update you on the documentary," Hunter announced, getting straight down to business. "Our requirements have changed somewhat after yesterday's events. I'm sure that doesn't surprise you a great deal. What we're now going to want is to focus the show on what happened in London and how Ronda plans to use her experiences as motivation to better herself and to help others. It's just the kind of story that we really like at WWE. I'm not saying we're going to trash all of the work you've done so far of course, I'm just giving you direction on how I want you to go forward. Less trailing Ronda around, filming everything she says and does. Focus on the charity that she's going to launch, and focus on how she's going to bury the hatchet with Paige. She might think I don't know about the bad blood between them, but nothing happens in my locker room that I don't know about."

Thea had to dismiss the first two responses that came to mind. Asking him what he was talking about when he mentioned Ronda and a charity wouldn't be a good idea, because she definitely should have known about that by now. While it was true that the only reason she didn't was that she had been suffering with her illness rather than talking with Ronda, it was still an excuse that she didn't want to have to make. Then there was also a question about why Hunter had let the bad blood go on between Ronda and Paige without doing anything about it. On the face of it, the answer to that seemed kind of obvious. As long as Ronda was happy, things would have been left the way they were. Again, she found herself wanting to chuckle at Ronda's denial of any kind of special working relationship with the boss. Yeah, and I just saw a pink elephant fly past the window, Thea thought.

"Okay, you got it," she smiled. It was hardly as if she could have given any other response. None of what the WWE Chairman had said to her had been phrased as a question. "I'll go catch up with Ronda now then."

Hunter nodded. "Good. Thanks, Thea."

* * *

"Well, I just barely avoided embarrassing myself in front of Hunter," Thea said as she walked into Ronda and Seth's locker room a couple of minutes later. Neither of them had started to change yet, and Adam and Maggie were also in there too, joining in with the distinctly tired sounding conversation.

"You weren't drooling over him were you?" Ronda quipped, turning to look at her. "Half of them do. I've never seen it myself, to be honest."

"How could you, when you've got me?" Seth chimed in, with a grin of his own.

"Do you really want anyone to answer that?" Maggie giggled from her seat in the corner of the room. Everyone laughed at that, including Seth, who knew that if you couldn't laugh at yourself then you had no right to ever laugh at others.

"Actually, what happened was Hunter blindsided me with the news that you've decided to start a charity, and that you've said something to him about burying the hatchet with Paige," Thea said. "He wants to change up the way we're filming the documentary and make it less about following you twenty four hours a day and more about how you plan to use what happened yesterday to better yourself. That was how he put it, at least."

"I think that's a pretty accurate way to look at it," Ronda decided. "What we're going to do is start a charity to support firemen who get inured, as well as the families of those who get killed on the job. We saw some of them in action yesterday and it just struck us how brave they are, yet they get so little recognition and support for what they do. The Rousey Foundation will hopefully be able to change that."

"I think that's a fantastic idea," Thea smiled broadly. "You're right, those guys really do a fantastic job. Put me down as donation number one when you get it started."

"Thanks," Ronda said. "I'm sure it will take a while and there will be all kinds of bureaucracy and bullshit to get through. I was talking about that with Bayley and Daga on the bus. Hunter already said that he will get some of the people who helped him and Steph start their charity to work with us, so hopefully that'll make it a bit easier. It's all that crap that I really dread to be honest. What I want to do as soon as possible is appoint someone to handle all of that shit for us so that we can just get on with publicising it and raising money. That's where our strengths will lie; we're definitely not office workers. In an ideal world, Hunter's people will be able to do all of that side of it for us, but we'll have to see."

"Don't worry, babe, I'll take care of that stuff with Hunter," Seth promised her.

"Thank you, honey," Ronda said warmly, kissing his lips.

None of that exchange had surprised Thea at all. Much like the restaurant that she and Seth owned, they were more sold on the idea of having the charity than actually running it day to day, and Ronda certainly didn't seem interested in that kind of work. Not that there was anything wrong with that of course; Hunter and Stephanie presumably had a similar kind of arrangement with their own charity.

"Well, I suppose it's time we went and found Paige," Ronda said. "Let me guess, this is where you want to start filming again?"

"We wouldn't miss this for the world," Adam answered before Thea got the chance to.

* * *

Standing outside of the locker room that was partially being shared by Paige, Ronda turned to Adam, who was standing nearby with his camera at the ready. "I said don't film anything until I've spoken to her about it," she snapped at him.

"Sorry," he replied sheepishly, lowering his camera immediately. Tempers could be lost easily after the kind of journey they had all been on, he realised.

Shaking her head in annoyance, Ronda knocked on the locker room door. It was Paige herself who opened it a few seconds later. "Ronda." A mixture of surprise and distaste. "You need something?"

"Can you come out here for a minute, Paige? I wanted to talk to you."

"Yeah, alright," Paige agreed reluctantly and stepped out into the hallway, letting the locker room door swing closed behind her. Personal differences aside, there was at least one thing that she wanted to say to Ronda. "Listen, before you say anything, I want to say that what you did yesterday was very brave and I respect you for doing it. We're never going to like each other..."

"Can I stop you there?" Ronda cut in with more politeness than she was used to using. "You know everything I do is supposed to be filmed right now? Do you mind if we..."

"Whatever," Paige shrugged, knowing what she was going to say and that she was going to be expected to repeat her previous statement. All part of the Ronda Rousey circus, she thought. Adam dutifully started filming. "Like I said," Paige started over. "What you did yesterday was very brave, helping those people like that. We're never going to like each other, but I do respect you for doing that."

"You say we'll never like each other, and maybe you're right," Ronda had to admit, "But the reason I came to see you is that I did a lot of thinking last night when we got back to the hotel. Seeing some of the things we saw yesterday will make you do that. Anyway, I got to thinking about the heat between us, and when you see things like what happened yesterday, the awful things that people do to each other, there's too much animosity in the world, Paige. We've both done and said things to each other that we shouldn't. Honestly, that's mostly my fault for refusing to put you over that time. I shouldn't have done that. It was selfish and it was unfair on you. What I'd like us to do is try and put our differences aside, and to show you that I mean it, I've spoken to Hunter about an idea that me, Bayley and Daga were talking about on the bus on the way up here. Bayley and I want to team with you tonight. We thought it was only right that you had a match and a win tonight, you know, after yesterday. What do you say?"

Paige was surprised to say the least, mostly by the fact that what Ronda had said had actually sounded genuine rather than bullshit that she was saying for the sake of the camera. She looked down at the hand that Ronda had extended towards her, wondering if she ought to shake it or not. It was true that life was too short to spend hating on someone you had to work with. Accepting the handshake didn't mean that she had to be friends with Ronda, it just meant making peace with her. That wasn't too much to ask, was it? "I hear what you say, Ronda, but what if Hunter asks you to put me over in the future? Are we going to go back to square one?"

"No," Ronda shook her head. "You have my word, no more of that selfish bullshit." The extended hand remained in place.

Paige decided to shake it, nodding her head in something akin to respect as she did so. "Fair enough, I'll take you at your word. Why don't you come in and tell me about the match we're going to have?"

"I'd like that," Ronda smiled. Part of her had expected Paige to call bullshit and refuse to shake hands with her. It would hardly have been the most surprising reaction of all time if it had happened.

Paige glanced at Adam before she opened the locker room door. "Your shadow will have to wait out here though. We're changing in there."

"Well that sucks," Adam muttered to himself as the two women disappeared into the locker room and closed the door.


	13. Chapter 13

_Two months later_

"This looks fantastic, Ronda. You've got to be pleased with it, right?"

Adam panned his camera around the huge conference room as Thea asked the question. Roughly twenty tables were arranged in the room, each capable of seating six people, complete with fine silverware and expensive table cloths. At the far end of the room was a small stage with a lectern, from which speeches would be given, before a lavish meal would be enjoyed by all attendees later in the night. Attendance to the event was by invitation only, and a sizable charity donation was expected of all guests. The occasion was the launch of The Rousey Foundation. Now officially backed by WWE, the charity which would help injured firefighters or families of firefighters killed on duty was ready to go operational, and would do so the following day.

Thanks to Ronda and WWE putting a lot of work into promoting the new organisation, the name was already becoming well recognised, and a number of other celebrities had already publicly voiced their support of the endeavor. Firefighters really were an underpaid, underappreciated, courageous group of people who most definitely did not get the support that they deserved if something went wrong while they were on duty.

"I'll be pleased with it when it's full of people," Ronda replied. There was an edge to her voice, which surprised neither Thea or Adam.

It hadn't taken Adam long to learn that the subject of their documentary was often prickly to deal with, and she had a tentative grip on her temper during stressful times. Overseeing the last minute preparations for the event was definitely a stressful time. He panned the camera back around to get Ronda and Thea back in the shot. Both women were wearing expensive dresses suitable for the occasion.

Seth and Maggie could be seen in the background, talking to the waitstaff who would be working the event. Resisting the temptation focus the shot on his girlfriend instead was difficult for Adam, particularly as this was the first time he had seen her wearing a dress. It was a long dress of course, as she was sensitive about people looking at her prosthetic legs. How judgmental people could be over things like that was sickening. Now wasn't the right time to be thinking about things like that, though, not on the last night of filming for the documentary. There was work to do.

Thea had been given an opportunity to scan over the guest list a few minutes earlier. One name from Ronda's past had been conspicuous by its absence. Always keen to get a sound bite for the documentary, she had waited for a moment like this to bring it up. The truth was that Ronda was a lot easier to play for a reaction than she would have liked to admit.

"I didn't see Devon Dawson on the guest list, Ronda. I thought you were good friends with her while she was at WWE. You even made the effort to show up on Raw when she retired with that heart condition they discovered she had. What's the deal there?" Ronda looked at her with a stern expression, which told her that she had hooked something with her bait.

"Sometimes you come to realisations in life, Thea," Ronda began. "What I soon realised after she left WWE, when she never bothered to call or reply to texts, was that Devon Dawson was full of shit the whole time I knew her. All she was trying to do when she acted like she was my friend was ride on my coat tails. You see, the thing about Devon is that she has a much higher opinion of herself and her own abilities than anyone else does. Deep down, there are some sort of issues going on there. Anyway, that's not my problem. The point is, the only reason anyone ever gave a fuck about Devon Dawson in WWE was that she ended up on the same team as me. Then when she had to retire, and riding on my wave of popularity was of no use to her anymore, she moved on, presumably to leach off of the next poor idiot who fell for her line of bullshit."

"Interesting," Thea replied, keeping a straight face despite the home run she had just scored. "So, is there anything you want to say to Devon Dawson now, if she's watching the show?"

Ronda considered that for a moment, then nodded and turned to look directly into the camera. "Devon, you can go f..."

"Ronda!" Seth called out sternly, walking over towards them. "The first guests are here. Stop ranting about people who don't matter and focus on those who do, alright?"

"You're right," Ronda agreed, almost sheepishly, realising that she had been baited by Thea. She couldn't blame the presenter for that; it was her job to ask those kinds of questions for the show. If anything, it was her own fault for not taking a moment to come up with a more diplomatic response.

Thea sighed inwardly as she and Adam followed Ronda and Seth across the room to the large double doors where the guests would begin entering any moment now. Seth had interrupted at the worst possible time, or the best, she supposed, depending on your point of view. Now it was time to film Ronda greeting some of those who had traveled to London for the event. England's capital had been where Ronda had insisted that the launch had to happen, as it was where the terrorist atrocity that had given birth to the idea had taken place just a couple of months earlier. Work was underway to repair the nearby Houses of Parliament, but the extensive damage to the building still served as a clear reminder of what had happened on that infamous day.

Several members of the senior management team for the London Fire Brigade were the first to enter the room, to be greeted and thanked for attending by Ronda and Seth in turn. In response, they passed on their congratulations on the launch of the charity and their gratitude for the foundation potentially doing so much for the cause.

"Hello, Ronda," the next guest said warmly as he approached the host and greeted her with a peck on the cheek. His wife was by his side, linked arm in arm.

"Hi, Hunter. Thank you for coming," Ronda said warmly. "It means a lot that you guys took a couple of days out of your busy schedules to be here."

"You're welcome. There's no way we could have missed it."

Stephanie unlinked herself from her husband, who moved on to speak to Seth. "Hi, Ronda. Nice setup you've got here," WWE's CEO said, looking around the room.

"Thanks, Steph. And thank you for agreeing to speak tonight. Like I've said before, it means a lot to me for The Rousey Foundation to have the support of WWE."

"It's my pleasure," Stephanie smiled warmly. Thea wondered how much of the warmth was genuine, given the somewhat troubled history that the two women had. Some of it was certainly genuine, but probably not all of it. "Giving back has always been a critical part of my vision for WWE, so it was natural that we would back one of our own when they launched a project like this."

Stephanie moved on to speak to Seth, allowing Ronda to greet the next guest, a famous Hollywood actor who she worked with on one of her movies.

Over the next half an hour, Thea stood by and watched as all of the guests were welcomed individually. It struck her that one of Ronda's greatest strengths was her ability to make people like her, there was no doubt about that. It was noticeable that everyone who walked away from her did so with a smile on their faces, clearly feeling like they had received special attention from Ronda that others hadn't been given, when exactly the opposite was true. Those people management skills had to be one of the main reasons that she had gotten popular with WWE's fan base so quickly when she had joined the active roster several years ago.

When everyone had entered the room and taken their seats, it was time for the speeches to begin. Ronda went first, thanking everyone again for coming, then going on to talk about that terrible day at the Houses of Parliament, and why she had decided that founding The Rousey Foundation was something she needed to do. She then handed over to Seth, who outlined the intended initial strategies for how any donations received would be put to productive use.

Next came one of the representatives from the London Fire Brigade, who thanked Ronda and everyone else involved with the new organisation for their efforts to support both firefighters in England and their colleagues in the United States.

Last to speak was Stephanie McMahon, who talked about how WWE's partnership with The Rousey Foundation would help to spread the word about the important cause to their audiences around the world.

"Lastly, before I finish, I would like to announce that my husband and I intend to make the first donation of the night." She turned to Ronda and smiled, knowing that plenty of cameras would be catching the moment. "Ronda, we're delighted to make our donation of twenty thousand dollars to support this fantastic and deserving cause."

The room erupted into applause at the mention of the huge amount of money. Although it was a drop in the ocean to people like Hunter and Stephanie, Ronda appreciated that it was a great contribution to get the night started in terms of raising the amount of money she was hoping for. The purpose of holding such an extravagant launch wasn't just to be self-congratulatory, it was also a great opportunity to part people who had a lot of money from some of it. If all went well, they would raise over a hundred thousand dollars by the end of the night. Thanks to Hunter and Stephanie, that definitely seemed to be more than achievable now.

Although it hadn't been planned in advance, Ronda decided to walk back up to the podium and shake Stephanie's hand, then say a final piece herself. "Thank you Stephanie, Hunter, for your incredibly generous donation. It means a lot to know that people are willing to back our cause to that extent. I can only hope that the rest of you who are here tonight will give as generously as you can. As with any charity, The Rousey Foundation can only exist thanks to donations. With this kind of support, I firmly believe we will really make a difference to people who desperately need our help. Again, thank you, everyone. Now, how about we all enjoy some of the finest food this side of the Atlantic?"

Cheers broke out at that, along with another round of applause that lasted until Ronda had walked off the stage and joined Thea and Adam, who were dutifully recording the whole thing for possible inclusion in the documentary. Exactly how much of it made the finished product was down to the editors.

"Nice job, Ronda," Thea said with genuine admiration. When all was said and done, The Rousey Foundation  _was_ going to do great things for people in need.

"Thank you." They stood in a silence that was almost companionable for a moment, while everyone else in the room began conversations of their own whilst awaiting the first course of five that would make up the night's meal.

"You know, part of me might even miss having the two of you shadowing me around all the time," Ronda admitted eventually. "I've kind of gotten used to it, you know?"

"Yeah, me too," Thea admitted honestly. "I don't know what I'll do without you losing your cool with me at least once a day."

Ronda gave her a withering look. "I'm not that bad, Thea."

"Alright, once every two days, maybe," she conceded with a giggle. "So, you've got work to do with the Foundation, and you're soon to leave WWE again to start filming your latest movie. How do you feel about that?"

"It's always a mixture of emotions," Ronda decided after a few seconds of consideration. "I like working on movies, of course I do, but it's always a shame to go away from WWE. Wrestling is what I enjoy the most. It's where I made my name, and it's important to never forget that, you know?"

"Wise words," Thea agreed, nodding. "This show will almost certainly go out before you finish your filming, so is there anything you'd like to say to your fans in WWE?"

"Yeah." Ronda turned to the camera and winked. "You ain't seen the last of Ronda Rousey."

"Alright, cut it," Thea instructed Adam. "That's going to do it. Thank you, Ronda, for letting us into your life for so long. It's been an experience, in many ways."

"You got that right, girl. Now, how much are you donating?"

END


End file.
